Month: December 2020

We’re in the final days of our 2020 fundraiser. As a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, all donations to the GNOME Foundation are tax deductible within the United States. Learn more about how you can support the GNOME Foundation and its work.

2020 has certainly been a unique year. It’s a year where billions of people have changed the way they work, socialize, and live their everyday lives. As various restrictions were introduced globally, people started to use their computing more and more.

At GNOME, we have a vision. We want to see a world where everyone is empowered by technology they can trust. We want to deliver this by building a diverse and sustainable free software personal computing ecosystem.

In the last year, we’ve had a number of large challenges to face. We canceled all of our travel and had to find new ways of working. Our three main conferences were moved online and this has meant it was more difficult to find sponsors. However, it has also brought new opportunities. We held our first GNOME Onboard Africa Virtual and had an onboarding event in Paraguay with Universidad Catolica.

At the end of 2019, a patent assertion entity brought charges against GNOME for violating one of their patents. We looked at this as something we could settle quickly for our own sake, but we knew it was an opportunity for GNOME to take a stand for all free software. We spent most of 2020 working on this case, alongside an amazing team of lawyers, with the support and energy of the entire FOSS community. We are extremely pleased with the settlement we reached, which opened up Rothschild Patent Imaging’s entire portfolio of patents for use by all projects released under an Open Source Initiative approved license. This created a bright new opportunity in FOSS for growth and innovation.

GNOME does great things for GNOME technologies and GNOME users, but we’re part of a bigger community of free and open source software. This community is a group of individuals, projects, foundations, and non-profits that come together build a brighter future for everyone by building a future for computing that includes everyone.

I have been in free software for over 20 years, starting as a contributor hacking away on my favorite projects to where I find myself today as Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. I am more excited about the future of free software than I ever have been before. Working with this team and the GNOME community inspires me every day. In it I see the best of what free software has to offer. There is world class technical excellence and enthusiastic contribution, and there is also such amazing compassion and thoughtfulness extended to contributions, users, and everyone who might one day find themselves touching the GNOME ecosystem.

Neil McGovern

Executive Director

GNOME Foundation

Sriram Ramkrishna has contributed to GNOME for more than twenty years! In addition to being active within the Project and a Foundation Member, Sri is a Friend of GNOME. Sri’s career has been shaped by his experiences with GNOME.

It’s been a year of giving – where I make a regular monthly contribution to the GNOME Foundation.

You might ask why I donate even though I spend so much time working on the GNOME Project. The answer lies in the fact that I can wholly attribute my success in my career to being part of GNOME. I want to give back.

In the U.S., a lot of graduates of universities give money to their alma mater because the education they received gave them the opportunities to succeed, and so give back as a way to pay it forward. It’s in that same vein that I also am donating.

When I started with GNOME I was a systems administrator working on UNIX systems. When I had my first project in GNOME it was a non-coding project. My contract with my employer prohibited me from doing freelance coding so I had to find other ways of contributing. It wasn’t a big deal — I actually disliked coding unless it was to solve specific problems for myself. Besides GNOME had plenty of ambitious smart coders already!

Instead, I explored a broad set of new skill that are only now considered useful and strategic. Developer relations and project relations were things that relatively were unknown when I started in 1998, but became quite valuable. With GNOME, I moved from water cooler IRC conversations to giving talks at conferences and engaging with the free software community and the wider open source community.

I was given an opportunity to hone a craft that is now seen as very valuable and pertinent in this grand world of open source ecosystems that I would never had a chance to explore if I had stayed in my lane as a systems administrator. Now I engage with some of the smartest people I have ever known — and amazingly enough have a mutual respect.

Working on a desktop environment isn’t easy — the engineering that is involved is only a part of what needs to be done in the project. Managing user expectations, dealing with internal conflicts, and being the most reasonable person in the room are skills are valuable skills that are needed in every project — and no project can provide that opportunity more than GNOME.

Rob McQueen was a teenage GNOME user who later became President of the Board of the GNOME Foundation. Rob shared his passion for GNOME and vision for the future with us, and we’re excited to share with you. Learn more about how you can support us in building this future.

I started using GNOME when I was a teenager because I had an old computer, and wanted to learn more about how the Internet worked. I installed Debian and set up GNOME because it was free and helped me use my computer the way I wanted. GNOME’s principled position on software freedom turned me into a user, and it is what has inspired me to become active in the community, run for the Board of Directors, and ultimately find direction in my life, using software as a means to promote global equality.

I’ve been on the GNOME Board of Directors for several years now, elected by the GNOME Foundation membership to realize their vision for the future of GNOME. I am the CEO of a nonprofit called the Endless OS Foundation, and I have four children, but I always make time for my GNOME responsibilities because I believe in the power of the project to bring computing to those who didn’t enjoy the same opportunities in life as me.

I believe in software freedom, and GNOME does too. When I was that curious teenager, access to source code was enough, but I now understand that user freedom is the goal. We must hold technology accountable and resist control by external parties who restrict how people can access information and technology, and you as a user need to be able to trust the systems you are using.

As with all free and open source software projects, GNOME has areas for improvement. I am particularly concerned about retaining and growing our contributor community. We have fantastic efforts around engagement and outreach, including events, internships, and newcomer initiatives. However, not enough of these people stay around. I want GNOME to grow sustainably, and part of that is having a strong and diverse contributor base that reflects the users we want to reach.

One of the reasons people don’t stay around is because they cannot afford to. I am privileged in my ability to work on GNOME – as are many contributors. We have the financial resources and time to focus on building better technology for others, or maybe even do so as part of a paid job, but most are not in that position. In a perfect world, the Foundation would be able to address this directly with a budget of millions, but, we don’t yet live in that world. To reach our goals, we’re building partnerships through initiatives like GNOME Circle, creating structured opportunities for projects and organizations to join the Foundation; organizing the Community Engagement Challenge with Endless; and working to remove barriers and provide incentives to get involved with the GNOME ecosystem.

I’m excited about everything GNOME has done in 2020 – I had fun at GUADEC even though I was home, as opposed to in Mexico. Flathub grew to over 1000 apps and now provides a compelling independent app store, helping people do the things they need while embracing free and open source software on their personal computer. From a technology geekery perspective, GTK4 looks really, really cool. GTK3 came out nearly 10 years ago, and some of the ideas that GTK4 brings to life have been building for nearly that long. Together with an amazing team of contributors from across the GNOME ecosystem, the Foundation also employs Emmanuele Bassi to work on GTK full time, and version 4 is going to be here .

For me, 2021 will be a year of working on Foundation strategy and outcomes. The Board of Directors has been looking in depth at what we’re building and for who, and how we can make sure GNOME works for everyone, regardless of their ability, geography, or resources. We’re going to reach more users and bring them the control and trust they need from their technology.

Rob McQueen

President of the Board of Directors

GNOME Foundation

Clarissa Lima Borges started in GNOME as an intern, and has continued to be an active member of the community. We are able to have interns, including those through Outreachy, thanks to support we receive from donations and our Friends of GNOME. Learn more about how you can get involved.

I am a GNOME contributor, Foundation member, former Outreachy Intern and former Google Summer of Code (GSoC) student. As an Outreachy intern, I worked on usability research for GNOME programs like Calendar, Gedit, Settings, Nautilus, and Notes. After my internship, I continued in the GNOME community and later took part in GSoC, where I started development of the UI library for GNOME’s web ecosystem.

GNOME has been my favorite desktop environment since I started using Linux. As an undergraduate student I used it to study and develop my projects. It has been my long term friend. When I applied to Outreachy, I saw that there was a project for UX research on GNOME and it was the perfect opportunity for me to help a project that I love and also to learn about usability.

When my internship ended, I had the chance to go to GUADEC, the GNOME conference, and give a talk about my internship. I was very happy that so many people were excited about what I did. Everyone was very nice and it made me want to continue in the community and contribute more.

Because of my Outreachy internship with GNOME, I learned that usability tests are valuable contributions and they can help open source projects to improve their interface and, consequently, have more users. So, in my undergraduate thesis, I proposed a contribution guide and an issue for complete and easy usability tests for open source projects.

Currently, I am finishing my bachelors degree in Software Engineering, and working at a company that creates solutions to help people, which makes me very happy. I am also organizing a mentorship program in Brazil to introduce FOSS to people underrepresented in tech. In Brazil, open source communities are very small because many people don’t have the opportunity to start or they face language barriers. Our goal is to create a safe space for those people to learn.

In GNOME, I learned a lot about communities, cooperative work, and how to be people oriented. These skills drew my employer’s attention. The most important thing I learned in the GNOME community is to be confident about my skills and that I have something to add, even in a big project like GNOME. I can’t even estimate how valuable this is for me.

On December 2, 2020, in conjunction with Endless, we announced the winners of Phase Two of our inaugural Community Engagement Challenge via live stream. These five projects are invited to participate in Phase Three, the final round of the competition, with the winners announced in early 2021. Phase Two project winners include:

• BOSS: Big Open Source Sister – With a focus on women, this Brazil-based organization aims to reach underrepresented groups in tech to work and be mentored on open source projects.
  For more information: https://github.com/BOSS-BigOpenSourceSister
• Broadening Participation through Scaffolded Sustained FOSS Engagement in an Undergraduate Computing Curriculum – Redesigns an undergraduate computing curriculum, infusing it with FOSS and computing for the greater good.
• First Contributions – Helps beginners contribute to open source projects through hands-on tutorials, a project database and an online forum.
  For more information: https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions/issues/33422
• Leapcode – A gamified platform that rewards and motivates first-time open source contributors.
  For more information: https://Leapcode.io (invite code: awesome-early-leapers-536)
• OpenUK Kids’ Courses and Associated Digital Camps – Courses that teach children both to code and to learn about open source, via short and fun animated lessons.
  For more information:  https://openuk.uk | https://openuk.uk/openkidscamp/

“All of the projects we received were fantastic but we felt that these five best demonstrated the   Challenge goal of creating dynamic projects that will inspire young coders and help them connect with the FOSS community,” said Neil McGovern, GNOME Foundation Executive Director. “We hope by running the Challenge we can strengthen the open source community and ensure that free software is available long into the future.”

The Community Engagement Challenge launched in April 2020. Twenty entries were chosen to participate in the second phase of the Challenge and were required to show proof of concept. Phase Three calls for a deliverable end product, with the winner receiving $15,000 and the second-place finisher receiving $10,000. The winner of this final round is currently scheduled to be announced in the spring of 2021. For more information on the Community Engagement Challenge or to view the entire list of Phase two participants, visit www.gnome.org/challenge.