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GNOME

GNOME Foundation Cuts Budget, Seeks More Volunteers and Donations (gnome.org) 56

Posted by EditorDavid from the GNU-Network-Object-Model-Environment dept.
"The foundation behind the Gnome desktop environment is having to go through some serious belt-tightening..." writes Linux Magazine.

From an October 7th announcement by The Gnome Foundation: Our plan for the previous financial year was to operate a break-even budget. We raised less than expected last year, due to a very challenging fundraising environment for nonprofits, on top of internal changes such as the departure of our previous Executive Director, Holly Million. The Foundation has a reserves policy which requires us to keep a certain amount of money in the bank account, to preserve core operations in the event of interruptions to our income. In order to meet our reserves policy, this year's budget had to reduce our expenditure to below expected income, and generate a small surplus to reinstate the Foundation's financial reserves to the necessary level...

We're asking for your support in several ways:

- Look out for opportunities to volunteer your time and skills in areas where we've had to reduce staff involvement.

- Share ideas on how to organize and improve our activities in this new context.

- Consider making donations to support the GNOME Foundation's core priorities, if you're able...

Through these difficult decisions, the GNOME Foundation is able to meet its reserves policy, ensuring sufficient funds for the coming year. Our budget for the new financial year is realistic and supports four full time staff, who are able to support key operations like finance, infrastructure and events. We are additionally contracting a number of other individuals on a short term or part time basis, to help with fund raising, websites and delivering on our project commitments.

We are going to be looking to the GNOME community to help with the areas that are most affected by our reduced staffing. If you would like to help GNOME with its events, marketing, or fundraising, we would love to hear from you.
In their new budget, "expenses have been greatly reduced," according to an October 10 update: We are also very relieved to be able to provide a surplus budget for the first time in many years, and doing so while still being able to support the community: events, infrastructure, internships, travel funding, and meeting our commitment to donors for work done in some parts of the stack, e.g.: Flathub, parental controls and GNOME Software.
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GNOME Foundation Cuts Budget, Seeks More Volunteers and Donations More

GNOME Foundation Cuts Budget, Seeks More Volunteers and Donations

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  • I'm no shaman, but for an affordable consulting fee I could serve as a guru. I'll provide them with a free sample of my wisdom: Perhaps some on the Foundation should volunteer their own efforts and save even more money. I would offer more, but like a Commodore Amiga I must meditate on the error of my ways.

  • Make a desktop people can understand? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 ) on Saturday October 19, 2024 @03:50PM (#64877963)

    Maybe they would do better if they made a desktop that people could understand and was easily configurable?

    They could look at Mate for some inspiration there.

    (Which sounds facetious but is actually a true statement.)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Dracos ( 107777 )

      Maybe they start small by not being deliberately contrary to what everyone else around Wayland wants to do.

      The recent changes to Wayland's protocol handling and governance rules were largely because of Gnome.

    • I tried to like Gnome 3, but eventually gave up and went MATE.
      IMO: MATE is better than anything else on Linux, Windows, or Mac.

    • Maybe they would do better if they made a desktop that people could understand and was easily configurable?

      Heretic! Making UIs colourless, non-intuitive, hard to use, and impossible to tweak is the wave of the future! Just go ask Mozilla...

      Is it a coincidence that Gnome and Firefox are falling on hard times even as other DEs and browsers are doing well? Maybe so. But my take on it is that they ignored and angered enough supporters for a long enough time that they pissed away most of the community goodwill they formerly enjoyed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Samare ( 2779329 )

        I think these are two different things.
        As far as I know, Gnome developers have their idea of what Gnome should be and supposedly don't listen to their users.

        Firefox developers on the other hand have been chasing after Chrome ever since Google invested massively in its development and started to bundle it with free software and in new computers.
        The switch from XUL extensions to WebExtensions was necessary to stop them from breaking with each Firefox release. As they switched to much frequent releases to keep

    • What is a more usable, friendly, open and simple desktop? I prefer Gnome 3 over KDE, LXQT, XFCE, even the Windows 11 / 10 desktop.

      Gnome is clean, easy to use, stays out of the way. It doesn't have 10 000 dials I can turn for no reason, unless I want to, and doesn't bombard me with settings, when really I don't want anything except dark mode, a wall paper, and some Bluetooth / Wi-Fi (plus some others, but elementary stuff).

      It looks good, its apps have a uniformity that is professional, clean, and I th

  • buh bye Gnome (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Saturday October 19, 2024 @05:01PM (#64878041)
    i miss the old gnomes, 1.4 was really cool, and 2.x was cool too, but when 3.x came along i just had to find something else so i turned to the lightweight window managers and favored IceWM and OpenBox when I wanted a completely barebones alternative
    • Openbox [openbox.org] immediately sprang to mind after reading the article summary, as it contrasts Gnome starkly. I love Openbox. May it never have an Executive Director or count conferences among its “key operations”.

    • I can't relate with this. Every time I have tried to use Gnome, I have been disappointed. If it's less responsive than what I was using otherwise, it has to bring some benefits too, but all I had was bugs. I haven't used KDE in ages but last time I did, I found it much better than Gnome. These days I'm happy with xfce. Less bloat than Gnome, does what I need and does it mostly well.

      • These days I'm happy with xfce. Less bloat than Gnome, does what I need and does it mostly well.

        I'm about to go DE shopping because it's been a while since I last did so, but I'll likely end up going back to xfce. I love Thunar, because its bulk rename function is indispensable to me. I can use the bulk rename function in other file managers, but it doesn't integrate well. Xfce holds plenty of annoyances for me, but in the past I've found that other DE's were even more annoying.

        • I use Thunar in i3/sway and it's a great file manager. Doesn't get in the way like many others, with trying to manage things that are already well handled, yet very flexible and has some nice extensions.

          I might go back to fluxbox as WM though. The i3 paradigm is nice, but there are some things which just won't work, and it seems to be quite a slog to solve them. Like the "slit", which is a really amazing feature for stowing away some nice indicators. GKrellm really needs a modernized version.

  • Did Red Hat support GNOME prior to IBM buying Red Hat ? If so, I believe IBM said "stop supporting an org. that is not needed for core functionality". So Red Hat money dried up and here we are. IBM these days only wants free labor, just look at how their employees are treated plus the CentOS change.

    With that said, no one really likes GNOME3, I can deal with it and GNOME's colors and rendering are 100x better then KDE. But usability and config are 1000x worse than KDE.

    FWIW, KDE defaults make my eyes stin

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      no one really likes GNOME3

      Ahh yes the old fallacy that if you don't like it, and the people you associate with don't like it, then everyone must also not like it. It's entirely possible that the majority of Linux uses don't like Gnome. But there a a significant number of users who use and quite like Gnome. For them the Gnome paradigm is quite intuitive, fast, and gets out of their way. For everyone else, Mate is still a thing and KDE 6 is great. Wayland works fine with many desktop environments (Xwayla

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        I'm not sure that it's a fallacy, unhappiness with GNOME's direction are what pushed most distributions to abandon it, leading to their current issues. If I look at the top 5 distros today, I see, in order of popularity

        - MX Linux: Xfce
        - Mint: Cinnamon
        - EndeavourOS: Xfce
        - Debian: GNOME
        - Manjaro: Xfce

        • DistroWatch? I wouldn't tout those numbers to make a point.

        • Please don't insult Debian like that. Debian is all about choice. It comes with literally dozens of window managers and desktop environments, and GNOME is but one of them. Also, all my homies who use Debian use something that is not GNOME3.

          • Just like the T Ford was all about choice of color (as long as you wanted black), so, too, Debian is about choice.

        • Where the heck did you get that list? I've never even heard of "MX Linux" and why would Manjaro be in the top 5? I'd also question Endeavour being on there.

          Ubuntu (which also has Kbunutu and Xbuntu also) has to be on that list as would Fedora or possibly Arch. Suse would also be a consideration but might not make the top 5.

          Then again, since you can install pretty much any DE on any distro, is the question even relevant?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Samare ( 2779329 )

          Manjaro doesn't default to one DE, it's available with KDE Plasma, Xfce and GNOME (official images) and Cinnamon, i3 Window Manager and Sway WM (community images).

      • But there a a significant number of users who use and quite like Gnome

        I just assumed that Gnome's only users were the only users that mattered: its developers.

      • If it were really a fallacy, then perhaps people would donate, right? the fact that nobody wants to support them, should show what people in the real world think of their abomination of a desktop.

      • If so many people like GNOME3, then volunteers and donations shouldn't be a problem, should they? Problem solved.

      • It's installed as default on several distros, so you can't really say if people actually like it or if it's just popular because it is the default..

        I dabbled in GTK development until I tired of the whole 'everything must be deprecated' mantra that started when RedHat started employing the GNOME devs full time. Yep also a refugee here of guh-nome since the start of version 3. The attitude really changed at that time and left a lot of bitter tastes for many previously involved in the project.

      • No fallacy, one can list a set of objective points of why GNOME 3 was bad. To me, the main point was that I needed more clicks and more time to do the same basic tasks. Switched instantly and never looked back.

    • Did Red Hat support GNOME prior to IBM buying Red Hat ? .

      Yes.

      If so, I believe IBM said "stop supporting an org. that is not needed for core functionality". So Red Hat money dried up and here we are. IBM these days only wants free labor, just look at how their employees are treated plus the CentOS change.

      Is this where I'm supposed to link to gnome still being supported by red hat, you linking to some cent os story and we all get to play choose your own adventure?

      • Is this where I'm supposed to link to gnome still being supported by red hat, you linking to some cent os story and we all get to play choose your own adventure?

        No, RH still support GNOME, but by less than they used to. The project is not completely dead, just not doing well.

    • Yes, Red Hat developers were the main driving force for the abomination that is GNOME 3 and its successors. Pretty much RH destroyed GNOME.

  • the entire (old) idea of making the desktop appearance be like a tablet was terrible on day one and that mess shows through today.
    No thank you.. xfce is just fine.

  • Cinnamon saved the Linux desktop, still we need Gnome's people--just to take another lead toward a Linux desktop that will make Microsoft and Apple scared. The Mate people should also join in. XFCE goal might be too minimal. The bottom line is: we need all hands on deck!

  • GNOME was the first big project to make itself dependent on systemd. Debian leaders cited GNOME's dependency as the primary reason why they had to switch to systemd. (The secondary reason was that init scripts are hard, but these days we have boilerplate that makes them simpler.)

    Today, gentoo and Devuan make it possible to have GNOME without systemd. Workalike libraries had to be created in order to make it work.

    Why would anyone want to contribute to GNOME now? KDE does everything it does and more, while it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      In other words they re-implemented their own version of parts of systemd. Which proves systemd is incredibly useful and enables all sorts of things that users expect from a modern, mature desktop environment. Hardly a damning indictment of systemd!

      • They adapted already existing things to the way systemd does them, rather. It's not like there's anything new in what systemd does (except that it's pretty much a huge monolith). It's that it's different.

      • In other words they re-implemented their own version of parts of systemd.

        They didn't really. They invented a way to pretend to software that you're doing the things systemd does whether you do them or not.

        Which proves systemd is incredibly useful

        Also no. It was the least amount of work necessary to get some software people wanted to run going after it was infected with poetteringness.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Samare ( 2779329 )

      systemd isn't anyone's fault, but you could say it's thanks to them.

    • That was Red Hat's Trojan horse: both GNOME 3 and Systemd were meet with resistance. Having control of both, Red Hat made the two depend on each other, so people using GNOME were forced to adopt Systemd and people using Systemd were forced to adopt GNOME.

      • That was Red Hat's Trojan horse: both GNOME 3 and Systemd were meet with resistance

        Yeah, token resistance. Debian bent right over for systemd to enable GNOME at a time when it was going to shit, and they should have passed on it. Debian was about software freedom to its users and when they brought in systemd, it lost them a lot of users. I bailed out at that time and now I'm running Devuan, so I'm only kind of back. (I was using Ubuntu for a while, if you're gonna run crapped up Debian you might as well get peak compatibility, but I left because of snap.)

        I tried Debian with sysvinit insta

  • To put it out of its misery. I cordially despise Gnome 3 and later.

  • Sorry GNOME, you had a beautiful desktop in GNOME 2.32 and lured by Red Hat money you wrecked it in GNOME 3 and its successors. Now you want more community support? Go back to Red Hat to ask for more money. Red Hat is dried of money because IBM? Tough luck! I moved ages ago to MATE. Not sorry.

  • Just let it die, Gnome 3 is a deformity.

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