February 2016 – GNOME Foundation

GUADEC 2016 to happen from August 12–14 in Karlsruhe, Germany

Schloss Karlsruhe. Photo Credit: Keiko S. (flickr @craxler)

We’re happy to announce that the 2016 edition of GUADEC will be held in Karlsruhe, Germany from August 12–14, at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a world-renowned research and educational institution.

Karlsruhe is located in southtwest Germany near the Franco-German border and is nicknamed the “fan city” because its streets are built radially around the palace tower. This beautiful and historic city is also home to the two highest courts in Germany, and several of Germany’s intitutions of higher learning.

“We are proud to have GUADEC in Karlsruhe this year and look forward to welcoming the GNOME community in our beautiful city. With the Gulaschprogrammiernacht (GPN) we have a large hacker congress in the city and having GUADEC here will further strengthen the local open source community.” — Benjamin Berg, local organizer

Join us!

Do you have an idea or project you’d like to share with the community during this year’s GUADEC? Stay tuned. We’ll announce a call for participation soon.

If your company or organization would like to sponsor GUADEC, you can find information on sponsorship opportunities in our Sponsors page at GUADEC.org, or contact us at sponsors@guadec.org and we are happy to discuss it with you.

If you would like to join our team of volunteers to help organize future GUADECs, please subscribe to the GUADEC mailinglist. We would love to have you on board!

Photo: “Nacht in Karlsruhe” by Heiko S., CC-BY-NC 2.0

Remembering Thomas Wood

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our friend, Thomas Wood. Commonly known as ‘thos’ on irc, Thomas was a long time contributor to the GNOME Art project, where he curated GTK+ Themes, backgrounds, login screens, and icons. In later years, he also worked on the control center and maintained the GNOME Backgrounds module. Outside of GNOME, he worked on the Moblin platform, which enabled various technologies key to GNOME 3, like GNOME Shell and Clutter.

Thomas lived and worked in London, first at OpenedHand and then at Intel. He helped with GNOME booths at conferences, and was part of the organizer team for GUADEC in Birmingham in 2007. He was a familiar face at GNOME London beer events.

Thomas was known as a highly talented programmer and a conscientious maintainer, and is remembered with warm memories by those who worked with him. He died too soon, and our thoughts go out to his wife and family members.

Endless joins the GNOME Advisory Board

ORINDA, CA – February 3, 2016 – The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce that Endless, creator of the Endless computer and operating system, has joined the GNOME Foundation advisory board. The Advisory Board is a body of stakeholder organizations and companies who support the GNOME Project by providing funding and expert consultation. The board includes Google, Intel, the Linux Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation, among others.

“We are very excited to join the GNOME Foundation advisory board,” said, Jonathan Blandford, VP Engineering at Endless and GNOME advisory board member. “The goals of the GNOME Foundation are perfectly aligned with the goals of Endless; to create a technology platform for the general public that is designed to be elegant, efficient, and easy to use.”

The Endless computer is the world’s first fully functioning desktop PC designed to bring the next four billion people into the information age.

“Endless is using GNOME in innovative ways to help close the digital divide. We’re excited to have them share their vision on the GNOME advisory board.” said Shaun McCance, President of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors.

The nonprofit GNOME Foundation is an independent organization committed to supporting the advancement of the GNOME Project and software freedom. It provides financial, organizational and legal support to the GNOME Project and helps determine its vision and roadmap. GNOME software is used by millions of people around the world.

More information about GNOME and the GNOME Foundation can be found at www.gnome.org

GNOME Foundation was never bankrupt

We are aware that there have been references online claiming that the GNOME Foundation was bankrupted in 2013 along with accusations about who was responsible.

To clarify the matter, the Foundation was never bankrupt. Quite a while ago, there was a temporary cash flow issue which is now completely resolved. Funds that were committed by sponsors and earmarked for the Outreach Program for Women (OPW) were delayed in payment. GNOME Foundation’s board temporarily froze expenditures while it collected the funds and revamped its financial procedures to adjust for the additional cash flow going forward. Every cent of the funds was ultimately received. Additionally, GNOME collected administrative fees which covered the program’s expenses.

Karen Sandler, our former Executive Director, made certain there were firm financial commitments from OPW sponsors prior to authorizing outgoing payments and she further ensured that all funds were ultimately recouped. While we were disappointed when Karen chose to leave the Foundation for a new position at the Software Freedom Conservancy, she has the full support of the GNOME community who elected her onto the Board of Directors in 2014. We are grateful for her continued involvement with Foundation activities on a voluntary basis after her term on the Board, as well as being a Free Software advocate and pro-bono lawyer for us and other projects.

While OPW has transferred to another home which is more suited to the program’s size and breadth, we remain an active partner of the program and are proud to support it.