News – Page 12 – GNOME Foundation

GNOME files defense against patent troll

Orinda, CA – 2019/10/21

Image from Marco Verch is available under cc-by-2.0.

A month ago, GNOME was hit by a patent troll for developing the Shotwell image management application. It’s the first time a free software project has been targeted in this way, but we worry it won’t be the last. Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC offered to let us settle for a high five figure amount, for which they would drop the case and give us a licence to carry on developing Shotwell. This would have been simple to do so; it would have caused less work, cost less money, and provided the Foundation a lot less stress. But it also would be wrong. Agreeing to this would leave this patent live, and allow this to be used as a weapon against countless others. We will stand firm against this baseless attack, not just for GNOME and Shotwell, but for all free and open source software projects.

For these reasons, GNOME Foundation Executive Director Neil McGovern instructed our legal counsel at Shearman & Sterling to file three papers with the court in California.

First: a motion to dismiss the case outright. We don’t believe that this is a valid patent, or that software can or should be able to be patented in this way. We want to make sure that this patent isn’t used against anyone else, ever.

Second: our answer to the claim. We don’t believe that there is a case GNOME needs to answer to. We want to show that the use of Shotwell, and free software in general, isn’t affected by this patent.

Third: our counterclaim. We want to make sure that this isn’t just dropped when Rothschild realizes we’re going to fight this.

We want to send a message to all software patent trolls out there — we will fight your suit, we will win, and we will have your patent invalidated. To do this, we need your help. Please help support the GNOME Foundation in sending a message that patent trolls should never target free software by making a donation to the GNOME Patent Troll Defense Fund. If you can’t, please help spread the word with your friends on social media.

GNOME opens recruitment to support Coding Education Challenge

Orinda, CA.

Today, October 18th 2019, the GNOME Foundation has announced two positions it is recruiting for to help drive the GNOME project and Free Software on the desktop. As previously announced, this is in support of our Coding Education Challenge, as well as the project more generally.

The Foundation is currently recruiting for two posts:

Graphic Designer
- We are looking for an experienced Graphic Designer to help GNOME create visual concepts to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, and captivate our users and partners. You will develop the overall layout and production design for advertisements, brochures, magazines, and corporate reports.
Program Coordinator (part time, fixed term)
- We are looking for an experienced Program Coordinator to undertake a variety of administrative and program management tasks. You will help in planning and organizing programs and activities as well as carry out important operational duties.

The Foundation is keen to hear from any person who is interested in applying for one of these posts. Details on how to apply and the application deadlines can be found on the Foundation’s Positions Available page.

GNOME Shell 2019 Hackfest concludes in Leidschendam Netherlands

The GNOME Shell 2019 Hackfest which took place in Leidschendam, Netherlands have concluded.

During the Hackfest various discussions was held and work was done to improve Wayland integration with GNOME Shell, mixed DPI densities, Xwayland-on-demand, and more!

Thanks go out to the Revspace Hackerspace for the venue. Reports from the Hackfest is available on the wiki . The Hackfest was considered as a great success as much progress on the GNOME the Shell was done.

GNOME Asia Summit 2019 to take place this weekend in Gresik, Indonesia

GNOME Asia Summit 2019 will take place this weekend in Gresik, Indonesia.

The main focus is primarily on the GNOME desktop, but also applications and platform development tools are covered. The summit brings together the GNOME community in Asia to provide a forum for users, developers, foundation leaders, governments and businesses to discuss the present technology and future developments.

Our executive director Neil McGovern and our director of operations Rosanna Yuen will keynote the summit.

More information about Asia Summit 2019 including a schedule and the full list of speakers can be found on the official website at https://2019.gnome.asia/

GNOME Foundation facing lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging

The GNOME Foundation has been made aware of a lawsuit from Rothschild Patent Imaging, LLC over patent 9,936,086. Rothschild allege that Shotwell, a free and open source personal photo manager infringes this patent.

Neil McGovern, Executive Director for the GNOME Foundation says “We have retained legal counsel and intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit. Due to the ongoing litigation, we unfortunately cannot make any further comments at this time.”

Updates to this case will be published on www.gnome.org.

GNOME.Asia Summit 2019 Registration is now open

We’re excited to announce that the Registration for GNOME Asia Summit 2019 is now open at https://2019.gnome.asia/#/registration

GNOME Asia Summit 2019 which will take place between 13-14th October in Gresik, Indonesia.

The main focus is primarily on the GNOME desktop, but also applications and platform development tools are covered. The summit brings together the GNOME community in Asia to provide a forum for users, developers, foundation leaders, governments and businesses to discuss the present technology and future developments.

More information about the GNOME 2019 Summit including a schedule, the list of speakers and venue information is available on the official website at https://2019.gnome.asia/.

The Foundation is looking forward to meet everyone who makes it to Gresik.

GNOME 3.34 Released

The latest version of GNOME 3 has been released today. Version 3.34 contains six months of work by the GNOME community and includes many improvements, performance improvements and new features.

Check out our release video at https://youtu.be/qAjPRr5SGoY!

Highlights from this release include visual refreshes for a number of applications, including the desktop itself. The background selection settings also received a redesign, making it easier to select custom backgrounds.

GNOME 3.34 also introduces custom folders in the application overview. Simply drag an application icon on top of another to create a folder. Folders are automatically removed when all icons have been dragged out of them.

For developers, GNOME 3.34 includes more data sources in Sysprof, making performance profiling an application even easier. Multiple improvements to Builder include an integrated D-Bus inspector.

The complete list of features and improvements are in the release notes.

GNOME 3.34 is code-named “Thessaloniki” in recognition of the most recent GUADEC, held this past August in Thessaloniki, Greece.

The GNOME Project is supported by the GNOME Foundation. We rely on donations to continue to drive the project forward. If you appreciate the work we do, please consider joining as a Friend of GNOME.

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Google Summer of Code 2019 concludes

After nine weeks, Google Summer of Code 2019 has concluded. During the summer, nine students have worked on a range of projects which will yield great benefits to upcoming versions of GNOME.

There no there is no doubt that this represents a substantial amount of effort and we hope that all of the students will stay as GNOME contributors.

The highlights of the completed projects include efforts to convert GStreamer plugins to Rust, implementing a saved states manager for GNOME Games, adding preview links in Polari (GNOME’s irc client), a rework of the Gtk website, implementing side by side diff view in Gitg and more.

As well as appreciating the student’s work, the GNOME Foundation is grateful to our mentors – all experienced community members who have contributed valuable time and energy helping guide the students to complete their respective projects.

The GNOME Foundation also wants to thank Google who provides the resources for Google Summer Of Code to run.

If you are not a GNOME contributor yet there is available information on how get involved – we love to have you on-board. A complete list of projects with links to respective to project is available on the GNOME wiki.

GNOME Foundation launches Coding Education Challenge

The GNOME Foundation, with support from Endless, has announced the Coding Education Challenge, a competition aimed to attract projects that offer educators and students new and innovative ideas to teach coding with free and open source software. The $500,000 in funding will support the prizes, which will be awarded to the teams who advance through the three stages of the competition.

Both the GNOME Foundation and Endless share a deep commitment to a vibrant free and open source software ecosystem.

“We’re very grateful that Endless has come forward to provide more opportunities for individuals to learn about free and open source software,” said Neil McGovern, Executive Director, GNOME Foundation. “We’re excited to see what can be achieved when we empower the creativity and imagination of our global community. We hope to make powerful partnerships between students and educators to explore the possibilities of our rich and diverse software ecosystem. Reaching the next generation of developers is crucial to ensuring that free software continues for many years in the future.”

Endless is an organization comprised of companies, initiatives, and philanthropic endeavors with the singular mission to help children take control of their digital worlds, not be controlled by them.

Matt Dalio, founder of Endless, hopes this grant will inspire new ideas that encourage students and teachers to embrace programming and coding education. “We’re eager to see the various ways that the GNOME Foundation and the wider community will create pathways for people into the world of free and open source software,” Dalio said. “We fully believe in GNOME’s mission of making technology available and providing the tools of digital agency to all. What’s so unique about the GNOME Project is that it delivers a fully-working personal computer system, which is a powerful real-world vehicle to teach kids to code. There are so many potential ways for this competition to build flourishing ecosystems that empower the next generation to create, learn and build.”

Anyone is encouraged to submit a proposal. Individuals and teams will be judged through three tiers of competition.

For more details and to learn how to submit a proposal when the competition opens, please look for coming announcements on the GNOME Foundation website https://www.gnome.org/news/ or social media.

GUADEC 2019 about to start in Thessaloniki

GNOME’s main conference, GUADEC, will run from tomorrow, Friday, August 24th to Tuesday, August 28th in Thessaloniki, Greece. Thessaloniki is Greece’s second-largest city located in the North of the country.

GUADEC 2019 will feature 3 days of presentations, and afterwards there are 2 days reserved for BOFs or Birds of a feather sessions and workshops.

GUADEC represents an important opportunity for the community, partners and individuals to come together, discuss ideas, solve problems and get work done. It is no understatement that the community is excited about the event.

More information about GUADEC including the schedule for the conference and information about social events is available at guadec.org

The GNOME Foundation is very thankful for the sponsors, the organizers and individuals who make GUADEC possible.

Image by courtesy of Mehmet Cankaya