5 ms·

A cash crunch at the Gnome Foundation

40 points by chiachun 13y ago

shiven 13y ago
As far as I am concerned, they can go cry in a corner for what they have turned Gnome into. Gnome 3 and Unity can go burn in hell for all eternity (yes, words are a poor outlet for expressing my hatred towards that interface). My donation dollars should be funding things better than such abominations! This is far more deserving: Project Gooseberry and the Blender Foundation. [0]: http://gooseberry.blender.org/ http://gooseberry.blender.org/
- hga 13y ago
  Let us say, without needing any hyperbole, that what they've recently wrought is not going to even vaguely motivate a whole bunch of people to bail them out, let alone fund them going forwards, especially after this multi-level debacle. Debian wheezy's Gnome Classic is just barely capable for my elderly parents; I'm now reasonably happy with Xfce.
jonstewart 13y ago
But... but... Gnome 3???
- jonstewart 13y ago
  Wow, -4 karma for pointing out that there might be a link between circling-the-wagons on the very unpopular (at the least, "controversial") Gnome 3, which is the flagship project, and subsequent financial difficulties at the sponsoring foundation. Even if the immediate causes are attributed to other programs, it seems worthy of some reflection that the timeline seems to be "ship controversial software => stand by it without making popularly-requested changes => financial difficulties".
kentrado 13y ago
Who would have thought that a sexist program such as the OPW, would take so much from the budget.
- hga 13y ago
  Robert Conquest, per his 2nd Law of Politics: "Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing."
teacup50 13y ago
Some more background: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ https://gnome.org/opw/ https://gnome.org/opw/ Reading this, I don't understand: * Why was "The Outreach Program for Women" allowed to so significantly impact Gnome's primary mission? * Why is the Gnome Foundation is funding and administering this program to begin with? It falls far outside their foundation's purview, and is undeniably gender exclusionary: "The Outreach Program for Women (OPW) helps women (cis and trans) and genderqueer get involved in free and open source software." If an organization dedicated to "cis, trans, and genderqueer" members wishes to manage and fund an outreach program, that's their prerogative, and Gnome should be welcoming, but it makes little sense to manage it under the Gnome Foundation, and it absolutely should not financially impact Gnome's ability to ship Gnome. Given that the outreach program was started in response to the lack of women candidates for Google's Summer of Code, this program could (and given fiduciary responsibilities, should) have focused solely on non-exclusionary outreach to women Summer of Code candidates. The push for biased inclusion has lost the forest for the trees.
- busterarm 13y ago
  I would definitely like to know how OPW caused increased turnover.
  - fhars 13y ago
    Increasing turnover it the whole point of internship programs.
  - rdl 13y ago
    They meant cash turnover, not personnel turnover, I think. As in more money was coming in/going out, which led to cashflow issues.
    - busterarm 13y ago
      That makes sense. I misread that badly.
SEJeff 13y ago
For those who want to donate: http://gnome.org/friends http://gnome.org/friends
- sandGorgon 13y ago
  this is also nice - http://www.gnome.org/friends/amazon/ http://www.gnome.org/friends/amazon/ this links to a lot of stuff on Amazon you would have bought anyway.
kevingadd 13y ago
I love that within a couple hours of this being posted the only comments of any length are uninformed hiveminding about how attempts to involve women in the GNOME development community are excluding men and destroying society. No substantial discussion of invoicing issues, no discussion of how governance could be changed to address these issues, no discussion of how contributors and users could get involved to fix things, no discussion of what the Gnome Foundation has accomplished and whether it could be more efficient about it. No, just a bunch of uninformed ranting about things entirely unrelated to the OP. I guess on the bright side HN's utterly ineffective 'flamewar detector' will drop this off the front page shortly and send people back to the MensRights subreddit. P.S. 'u mad, kg?' You bet I'm mad. The quality of discourse on HN keeps going down. I was genuinely curious about the GNOME foundation, so I click through and find out that most people didn't even read the article, as if this is friggin' Slashdot. Props to the people who read the article and responded to comments with actual information; fight the good fight.
- cdr 13y ago
  Hey now, attacking programs that support women and other minorities whenever the slightest mention of them is made is a longstanding Hacker News tradition.
- teacup50 13y ago
  > No substantial discussion of invoicing issues, no discussion of how governance could be changed to address these issues, no discussion of how contributors and users could get involved to fix things, no discussion of what the Gnome Foundation has accomplished and whether it could be more efficient about it. I thought I was pretty clear on this point; the Gnome Foundation board appears to have operated far outside the foundation charter and if so, should be censured and ideally recalled. Assuming that this assessment is accurate: To address continuity of the OPW specifically, board members that wish to continue administering the OPW program can resolve governance and accountability issues, while ensuring OPW's continuity, by resigning and founding a distinct organization that has within its charter the administration of OPW. Any remaining board members should be recalled, reaffirming the board's fiduciary mandate to operate within the Gnome Foundation charter.

40 points by chiachun 13y ago

As far as I am concerned, they can go cry in a corner for what they have turned Gnome into. Gnome 3 and Unity can go burn in hell for all eternity (yes, words are a poor outlet for expressing my hatred towards that interface). My donation dollars should be funding things better than such abominations! This is far more deserving: Project Gooseberry and the Blender Foundation. [0]: http://gooseberry.blender.org/ http://gooseberry.blender.org/

hga 13y ago
Let us say, without needing any hyperbole, that what they've recently wrought is not going to even vaguely motivate a whole bunch of people to bail them out, let alone fund them going forwards, especially after this multi-level debacle. Debian wheezy's Gnome Classic is just barely capable for my elderly parents; I'm now reasonably happy with Xfce.

jonstewart 13y ago

But... but... Gnome 3???

jonstewart 13y ago
Wow, -4 karma for pointing out that there might be a link between circling-the-wagons on the very unpopular (at the least, "controversial") Gnome 3, which is the flagship project, and subsequent financial difficulties at the sponsoring foundation. Even if the immediate causes are attributed to other programs, it seems worthy of some reflection that the timeline seems to be "ship controversial software => stand by it without making popularly-requested changes => financial difficulties".

kentrado 13y ago

Who would have thought that a sexist program such as the OPW, would take so much from the budget.

hga 13y ago
Robert Conquest, per his 2nd Law of Politics: "Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing."

teacup50 13y ago

Some more background: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/CurrentBudgetFAQ https://gnome.org/opw/ https://gnome.org/opw/ Reading this, I don't understand: * Why was "The Outreach Program for Women" allowed to so significantly impact Gnome's primary mission? * Why is the Gnome Foundation is funding and administering this program to begin with? It falls far outside their foundation's purview, and is undeniably gender exclusionary: "The Outreach Program for Women (OPW) helps women (cis and trans) and genderqueer get involved in free and open source software." If an organization dedicated to "cis, trans, and genderqueer" members wishes to manage and fund an outreach program, that's their prerogative, and Gnome should be welcoming, but it makes little sense to manage it under the Gnome Foundation, and it absolutely should not financially impact Gnome's ability to ship Gnome. Given that the outreach program was started in response to the lack of women candidates for Google's Summer of Code, this program could (and given fiduciary responsibilities, should) have focused solely on non-exclusionary outreach to women Summer of Code candidates. The push for biased inclusion has lost the forest for the trees.

busterarm 13y ago
I would definitely like to know how OPW caused increased turnover.
- fhars 13y ago
  Increasing turnover it the whole point of internship programs.
- rdl 13y ago
  They meant cash turnover, not personnel turnover, I think. As in more money was coming in/going out, which led to cashflow issues.
  - busterarm 13y ago
    That makes sense. I misread that badly.

SEJeff 13y ago

For those who want to donate: http://gnome.org/friends http://gnome.org/friends

sandGorgon 13y ago
this is also nice - http://www.gnome.org/friends/amazon/ http://www.gnome.org/friends/amazon/ this links to a lot of stuff on Amazon you would have bought anyway.

kevingadd 13y ago

I love that within a couple hours of this being posted the only comments of any length are uninformed hiveminding about how attempts to involve women in the GNOME development community are excluding men and destroying society. No substantial discussion of invoicing issues, no discussion of how governance could be changed to address these issues, no discussion of how contributors and users could get involved to fix things, no discussion of what the Gnome Foundation has accomplished and whether it could be more efficient about it. No, just a bunch of uninformed ranting about things entirely unrelated to the OP. I guess on the bright side HN's utterly ineffective 'flamewar detector' will drop this off the front page shortly and send people back to the MensRights subreddit. P.S. 'u mad, kg?' You bet I'm mad. The quality of discourse on HN keeps going down. I was genuinely curious about the GNOME foundation, so I click through and find out that most people didn't even read the article, as if this is friggin' Slashdot. Props to the people who read the article and responded to comments with actual information; fight the good fight.

cdr 13y ago
Hey now, attacking programs that support women and other minorities whenever the slightest mention of them is made is a longstanding Hacker News tradition.
teacup50 13y ago
> No substantial discussion of invoicing issues, no discussion of how governance could be changed to address these issues, no discussion of how contributors and users could get involved to fix things, no discussion of what the Gnome Foundation has accomplished and whether it could be more efficient about it. I thought I was pretty clear on this point; the Gnome Foundation board appears to have operated far outside the foundation charter and if so, should be censured and ideally recalled. Assuming that this assessment is accurate: To address continuity of the OPW specifically, board members that wish to continue administering the OPW program can resolve governance and accountability issues, while ensuring OPW's continuity, by resigning and founding a distinct organization that has within its charter the administration of OPW. Any remaining board members should be recalled, reaffirming the board's fiduciary mandate to operate within the Gnome Foundation charter.