According to Wikipedia, Barack Obama has handed out more Presidential Medals of Freedom per year in office than any other president. Does this reflect lower standards or simply a larger population?
There are five awards that fall into the “computing” category. Cerf and Kahn are there for developing the Internet protocols, but why not Bob Metcalfe for the underlying Ethernet hardware? Gordon Moore got an award, but not any of the folks listed as having been instrumental in developing microprocessors. Why not Jack Kilby instead, for developing the integrated circuit that made microprocessors inevitable? Why not the Bell Labs folks who built the first semiconductor transistor? The situation in software is curious. Grace Hopper (COBOL) and Margaret Hamilton (assembly language code for an obsolete-five-years-before-it-was-built NASA computer) won awards this year. Why not any of the Americans who’ve won the Turing Award? John Backus for getting most of the world (except for NASA!) out of the assembly language business. Ivan Sutherland for the computer graphics and virtual reality that makes sharing a small piece of land with 325 million other Americans bearable? Fernando Corbato for building the modern operating system on which we rely every day. The RSA inventors for enabling Internet to be used for commerce? What about my personal heroes, the folks who made the RDBMS? E.F. Codd, Michael Stonebraker, and perhaps Larry Ellison (not a Turing Award-winner, but maybe has a good shot next year due to being Trump’s kindred soul?).
[Bill Gates won an award this year, but not for computer nerdism. The White House says the following:
Bill and Melinda Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, the foundation focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, the mission is to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. The Gates Foundation has provided more than $36 billion in grants since its inception.
If most of the money spent by the foundation is for health care in foreign countries then essentially Bill Gates is getting an award for avoiding U.S. capital gains and estate taxes and sending a massive amount of capital out of the U.S. If the $36 billion had instead been passed down to his kids more than half of the money would have ended up in the hands of federal and perhaps state government (capital gains taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes, income tax on dividends received, sales and property taxes on items purchased with the money, etc.).]
Readers: Ideas for the next batch of computing-related awards? How about Steve Jobs (“Nerd Jesus”)?
Re: Why not the Bell Labs folks who built the first semiconductor transistor?
John Bardeen was awarded the Medal in 1977.
This year Richard Garwin might get honorable mention in computing, he was an IBM fellow and involved in discovery of the Fast Fourier Transform.
Why not Metcalfe, Baccus, Kilby, etc?
Perhaps because you didn’t put the time and effort into making a case and campaigning for any of them?
As for Bill Gates. Great point! He’s getting the award for repatriating some of the proceeds of colonialism. Good for him!
‘If most of the money spent by the foundation is for health care in foreign countries then essentially Bill Gates is getting an award for avoiding U.S. capital gains and estate taxes and sending a massive amount of capital out of the U.S.”
If you really believe all Gates has accomplished is avoiding taxes, then you have become too cynical to be useful. A shame, really.