
A cash crunch at the Gnome Foundation - chiachun
https://lwn.net/Articles/594583/
======
teacup50
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
I would definitely like to know how OPW caused increased turnover.

~~~
rdl
They meant cash turnover, not personnel turnover, I think. As in more money
was coming in/going out, which led to cashflow issues.

~~~
busterarm
That makes sense. I misread that badly.

~~~
rdl
I read it exactly as you did the first time through; it was unclear as
written.

------
kevingadd
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.

~~~
teacup50
> _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.

------
SEJeff
For those who want to donate:

[http://gnome.org/friends](http://gnome.org/friends)

~~~
sandGorgon
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.

------
shiven
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
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.

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

~~~
hga
Robert Conquest, per his 2nd Law of Politics: " _Any organization not
explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing._ "

------
jonstewart
But... but... Gnome 3???

~~~
jonstewart
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".

