Perhaps this is an opportunity for Gnome users to bribe the foundation to revert some of Gnome's insane UI decisions. Example: A series of kickstarters such as "Bribe Gnome to remove pop ups that say 'Your window is ready'" or "Bribe Gnome to let me Hibernate my computer again".
I never understood people's attachment to GNOME. When GNOME 3 came out I didn't like it so I permanently switched to XFCE. What is it that GNOME devs do that is so valuable and unique? Why are distributions committed to waiting for years for it to improve despite the users' ire?
I took the same approach initially, and I'm also using xfce now. That being said, a lot of the programs I use fall under the GNOME umbrella at some level, and I'm slowly starting to see more "new GNOME" leak into my desktop than I would like. I'm specifically referring to the style, arrangement, and (lack of) configurability in the upper region of the window.
This is slowly happening with a lot of applications that I use regularly.
> What is it that GNOME devs do that is so valuable and unique?
In my opinion the biggest problem is that they still control mainline GTK. Many of the high quality Linux desktop apps "automatically" fall under the GNOME umbrella because of this, and it's going to take a lot more than just switching to xfce to get them back out. It's become pretty clear to me that GNOME is trying to become a mobile first platform, and that they'd like to take many of my desktop applications with them. I'm not really sure what a good long term solution to this problem is.
It's a political thing, at least in part. GNOME was created because some Linux folks liked the KDE environment, but didn't like the license parts of it were under at the time. KDE later changed its license, but by then, GNOME had its own community that didn't want to go back. And of course, it has the word "GNU" in the name, which gets some folks misty-eyed.
Red Hat is probably the biggest sugar daddy GNOME has. They've always shipped a GNOME desktop as their default desktop in RHEL, and they employ a lot of the GNOME developers.
Xfce is, in my opinion, a better and more focused desktop, but it was "not invented there" and so doesn't get very much PR from Red Hat. Ubuntu, of course, is pushing their own crappy desktop and doesn't have any incentive to make people aware of alternatives. Most of the Xfce devs are in Europe, I think.
Arguably, what happened here is that Microsoft Windows jumped off a cliff, and GNOME and Unity said, "wow! let's do that." The idea of having the same interface on a tablet as on a desktop is an old one with Microsoft (it's why Windows CE was such a flop) but it just keeps coming up again at that company. Now I think some people are starting to see the pavement approaching at terminal velocity. Hopefully we'll get our start menus and windows back in the next year or two (from Redmond and GNOME).
I run GNOME 3 because it underpins Debian and Debian is the least fragmented developer-friendly Linux desktop. It's got the reliability I need for a work environment and the shininess that makes me happy and is as usable out-of-the-box as OSX, Windows 7, or Ubuntu. Also I appreciate Abiword and Gnumeric, GNOME's word processor and spreadsheet respectively, for sucking the least among their FOSS alternatives. I donate.
In general, most of the GNOME devs work for Red Hat. Debian is not really that closely associated with GNOME, and a lot of the Debian devs have gotten annoyed by GNOME decisions in the past. I think the latest example was when GNOME started to depend on systemd, some Debian developers were annoyed.
Thanks for the info. I trust Debian to make good decisions about the new init system and the default desktop environment. If they go with Xfce I will not complain (and it'll be a nice boon for Xfce development; potentially a win-win).
I like Debian as well. I wish they were more popular than "that other distro" that copies their work without contributing much back. I think the move to systemd is a good idea.
Oh, I forgot about applications. It's probably because they've very loosely coupled to the rest of GNOME (unlike KDE applications and KDE). By the way, if you like Abiword, you might also like LyX.
Individual GNOME utilities are fine, but the GNOME 3 environment as a whole was a flop for me. The tight coupling (try removing separate GNOME tools on Debian, it forces you to get rid of a ton of other libraries and then suggest to autoremove the entire set, including the display manager) and finally mandatory systemd integration were the last straws.
I haven't used a DE in a while, though. A basic composite/tiling WM is enough. Anything else is superfluous, although I do enjoy Xfce.
This is my biggest problem with GNOME shell, and programs that are packaged with it. The dependencies are very strange and just annoying. I don't need a lot of the utilities, but apparently GNOME knows better.
So you're arguing that Linux and Mozilla have no relation to the development of GNOME? The OS kernel that most GNOME installs run on, and the web browser used by a significant subset of GNOME users (that implicitly needs to interact well with GNOME & GTK), have no relation to GNOME? Really?
They certainly don't have the kind of relationship that could justify the GNOME Foundation running their women's outreach programs for them. GNOME's absolutely miniscule compared to both of them, in terms of money, developers, staff, users, everything. To put this in some perspective, the Mozilla Foundation alone has approximately 3 orders of magnitude more income than the GNOME Foundation, so it's no surprise the majority of GNOME foundation cash flow was for the Outreach Program for Women rather than for GNOME.
I could understand if, say, Mozilla decided they wanted to help other open source organisations that were only tenuously related to them in this way because they can afford to, but the GNOME Foundation is simply too small to take on this kind of big project.
"A significant subset of GNOME users" running Firefox does not constitute a "relation to the development of GNOME". Neither does Linux being the "OS kernel that most GNOME installs run on".
There's not much interroperability (or need for such) between them. The Gnome team develops GNOME, the kernel team develops Linux and the Mozilla team develops Firefox, and that is that. At best, the Mozilla folks tried at times to adapt to the default GNOME themes etc. Not much besides that.
Now, Gnome and Gtk, that's a real development relation. Or Linux (kernel) and libc.
I really feel all the haters here are emotionally attached to GNOME deep down their hearts. Also, I feel that they want GNOME 3 to prove them wrong, to succeed, but not on their desktops ... maybe on their tablets.
I felt the alienation too buddies, but maybe GNOME hasn't forgotten us after all, by introducing GNOME Classic (http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/new-classic-mode-...).
I urge everyone of you to donate, not just because of this crunch. Donate to fulfil your expectations from GNOME, to see GNOME 3 succeed, maybe on your tablet.
We, the open source hackers build such foundations. Foundations that aren't like hoarders Samsung & Apple who burn their money away on destructive litigations.
Support GNOME at http://www.gnome.org/friends
A friend in need is a friend indeed :-)
> If anyone is familiar with Guile/Scheme, the Foundation would benefit from a custom printable invoice stylesheet for GnuCash. Contact the board for a PDF of what it needs to look like.
Idea: spend money on development, not "outreach foundations". The director took donations intended for one purpose and used them to fund political pet projects in another. She resigned before the 2013 financial reports came to light.
"we made assumptions based on previous years' incomes and expenditures [...]. Those assumptions proved to be more optimistic than reality."
The foundation overspent on the OPW program. But I can't help wondering ... isn't the budget problem a direct result of Gnome getting less ans less popular over the years ?
When the user base is shrinking, so will the donations, hence the budget problems, right ? People make donations to projects they supports. As developer are not willing to listen to its user base, why would they donate ?
"Corporate sponsorship ... up 41.6% from the previous year."
"Personal donations rose by 45.4% ... this appears to be the highest amount of personal donations that the GNOME Foundation has ever received."
If you've got some real reason to believe 2013's finances are different, and believe the foundation is lying about their reasons for the shortfall, then do let us know.
I've never said they were lying. And as stated, I was "wonderind" or "thinking out loud" as you put it. Should have checked the facts, you're right, I stand corrected.
But still, there are reasons to think 2013's finances are different. They said they've overspent based on projection on previous years income. Maybe it still growing but not as much as expected. We'll see in the 2013's report.
