Tag: GNOME Foundation

GNOME Foundation opens recruitment for further expansion

Orinda, CA.

Today, July 6th 2018, the GNOME Foundation has announced a number of positions it is recruiting for to help drive the GNOME project and Free Software on the desktop. As previously announced, this has been made possible thanks to a generous grant that the Foundation has received, enabling us to accelerate this expansion.

“These positions are key to ensuring that the Foundation remains sustainable and that we are able to support the community in key areas,” said Neil McGovern, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation. “It is my hope that we can continue to grow the Foundation so that these posts will continue to be funded, but to allow further positions to become available”

The Foundation is currently recruiting for four posts:

  • Development Coordinator
    • This will ensure that we receive sufficient funds to continue our work delivering free software
  • Program Coordinator
    • The Program Coordinator will free up time from those involved in organizational, administrative and logistical problems
  • Devops/Sysadmin
    • The systems and services we run need proper maintenance and care. As Flathub continues to grow, more support is needed to achieve this.
  • GTK+ core developer
    • GTK+ is core to our entire platform. Investing in development and maintenance of this toolkit will benefit the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem.

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.

Canonical joins GNOME Foundation Advisory Board

ORINDA, CA – November 1st, 2017 – The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce that Canonical, creator of the Ubuntu 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, the Linux Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation, among others.

“The recently launched Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) had been widely anticipated as the first version of Ubuntu to switch to GNOME. The success of this release is thanks to the GNOME community. We’re excited to join the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board to continue our collaboration in closer partnership.” said, Jamie Bennett, Vice President of Devices and IoT Engineering at Canonical

Ubuntu is the most popular GNU/Linux distribution and is used by millions of users daily.

“Canonical brings a wealth of experience, and we’re extremely pleased that they’re engaging with the Foundation and the community.” said Neil McGovern, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation.

The non-profit 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

Donations within the EU are now handled through the Wau Holland Foundation

The GNOME Foundation and the Wau Holland Foundation (Wau Holland Stiftung; WHS) have recently reached an agreement that will significantly improve the way donations to GNOME within the European Union (EU) are received and managed.

Prior to signing this agreement, the GNOME Foundation was able to receive donations through many payment methods (including wires, checks, and Paypal transfers or subscriptions), whether for one-time donations or recurrent (monthly) subscriptions as part of the Friends of GNOME program. However, donors needed to be residents of the United States for their contributions to be eligible for tax-deductibility, and wire transfers were prohibitively expensive from Europe.

The GNOME Foundation worked closely with the WHS to streamline the process for donations made within the European Union. Thanks to this agreement, Europeans donating to the GNOME Foundation through the WHS in support of GNOME will be eligible for tax receipts, allowing them to deduct donated amounts in their annual tax reports to the extent permissible by the law in their local jurisdiction.

The WHS has become a valuable ally to the GNOME Project, providing financial support, knowledge and infrastructure for strengthening GNOME’s ties with their European donors.

“Having an entity for collecting tax-deductible donations within the European Union is something the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors has been working on for a long time. I’m glad the current Board was able to sign the agreement that turned this dream into reality,” says Andrea Veri, Secretary of the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors.

The GNOME Foundation thanks the WHS for its continued support and help.

Useful links:

  • Ready to make a donation from within the EU? Look at the “Other ways to donate” page.
  • The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors values transparency, and thus made public the agreement between the GNOME Foundation and the WHS. Look here for a copy of the agreement.

GNOME Foundation publish 2013 Annual Report

The GNOME foundation are pleased to publish the 2013 Annual Report . In the Report you can read about the foundation activities during 2013, some of the highlights include details about the continuous success of the OPW program and the many hackfests that took place during the last year.

“The 2013 Annual Report highlight how vibrant the GNOME project is and represents itself a real community effort.” Oliver Propst, Annual Report coordinator.

The foundation want to thank Friends of GNOME and advisory board members who support the foundation and its operations.

GNOME Foundation welcomes newly elected Board of Directors

The GNOME foundation is happy to welcome its new GNOME Board of Directors who were recently elected
for the 2014-2015 term.

The new board consists of the following new members: Karen Sandler, Jeff Fortin Tam, Andrea Veri while Ekaterina Gerasimova, Sriram Ramkrishna, Tobias Mueller and Marina Zhurakhinskaya continues to serve. All Board members are key contributors and together represents the diversity of the GNOME community .

“The very first feelings I had when I was elected on the Board of Directors have not only been a great joy and pleasure but also a strong motivation and spirit of responsibility for what concerns the decisions and dedication every Board member should be enlightened with during his yearly commitment” -Andrea Veri

Serving on the board is very a challenging task that involve many difficult decisions, we wish the new board the best of luck in the the upcoming year.

The Foundation wants to express a special thanks to the outgoing board members: Andreas Nilsson who served as President, Joanmarie Diggs who served as Vice President and Emmanuele Bassi who served as Secretary. We also want to thank the candidates who were not elected this time, as this was a particularly heated election, with a lot of great discussion about the future of GNOME.

The new board will officially take their positions at the upcoming GUADEC conference that takes place 25 July – 01 August in Strasbourg, France.

The GNOME Board of Directors is elected annually by the foundation members, every foundation member are eligible to run for the board. More info about the board are available on the foundation website.

Karen Sandler Steps Down as GNOME Foundation Executive Director

Karen Sandler

Karen Sandler has been serving as GNOME Foundation Executive Director since June 2011. Today she announced that she will be leaving the post, to take up the position of Executive Director at the Software Freedom Conservancy.

Announcing her departure, Karen said: “Working as the GNOME Foundation Executive Director has been one of the highlights of my career.” She also spoke of the achievements during her time as Executive Director: “I’ve helped to recruit two new advisory board members… and we have run the last three years in the black. We’ve held some successful funding campaigns, particularly around privacy. We have a mind-blowingly fantastic Board of Directors, and the Engagement team is doing amazing work. The GNOME.Asia team is strong, and we’ve got an influx of people, more so than I’ve seen in some time.”

“With all these achievements, I think it’s time for me to hand the reins over to someone new, who can bring their own personal strengths to the role.”

Though Karen will no longer be the GNOME Foundation Executive Director, she will still be a part of the GNOME project. She has announced her intention to run for the Board of Directors, and wrote “I will stay on as pro bono counsel, and of course I’ll continue volunteering in other ways.”

Thanks and good wishes from the GNOME community have already started to pour in. Emmanuele Bassi, a Foundation Board member, said “I’d like to thank you for your great, indispensable work over the past few years. Your enthusiasm and involvement in GNOME have been incredible and inspiring.”

Meanwhile, the GNOME Foundation Board has already started to consider potential candidates for a new Executive Director, and interested parties should email board@gnome.org. Arrangements have also been made to ensure that the Foundation continues to run smoothly.

Private Internet Access joins the GNOME Foundation’s Advisory Board

Orinda, CA — September 23, 2013 — The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce that Private Internet Access has joined GNOME’s advisory board. The Advisory Board is a body of stakeholder organizations and companies who support the GNOME Project by providing funding and expert consultation. Last month during GUADEC, GNOME announced that the Linux Foundation was added to the advisory board, joining IBM, Google, Intel and the Free Software Foundation, among others.

Andrew Lee, co-founder of Private Internet Access said “We’ve been very fond of GNOME at Private Internet Access for quite a long time. When GNOME announced its new initiatives towards greater privacy functionality, our fondness quickly became a strong admiration. We’re very proud to support GNOME and its continued commitment to open source, usability and, most importantly, privacy.”

Private Internet Access, founded in August 2010 is a VPN service provider offering anonymous and encrypted VPN. The service operates at the TCP/IP interface level, allowing all applications to be secured, not just the web browser. Private Internet Access has publicly commited itself to user privacy. It is a small U.S.-based company, with thousands of users.

“I am excited to welcome Private Internet Access as a GNOME Advisory Board member,” said Tobias Mueller, member of the board of directors of the GNOME Foundation. “This is a great example of how the support for Free Software is growing and highlights how we are aligned in our missions to put users in control.”

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.

Linux Foundation Joins the GNOME Advisory Board

Opening GUADEC 2013 today, Karen Sandler, GNOME Executive Director, announced that the Linux Foundation has become the latest member of GNOME’s Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is a body of stakeholder organizations and companies who support the GNOME Project by providing funding and expert consultation. It includes IBM, Google, Intel and the Free Software Foundation, among others.

Speaking at the opening of GNOME’s annual European conference (GUADEC), Sandler said: “We are excited to have the Linux Foundation join our Advisory Board, and look forward to working closely with them. Their membership in the Advisory Board is a recognition of the value that the GNOME Project brings to the GNU/Linux ecosystem, which is something that we hope to enhance even further in the future.”

Joining the GNOME Advisory Board will give the Linux Foundation the organization a direct voice within the GNOME Project and will enable it to play a greater role in the future of GNOME.

Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, said “Our mission to promote and advance the Linux kernel is aided by our partnerships with key free software projects. GNOME is an important project and we are looking forward to continued collaboration by joining the advisory board.”

Dan Frye, who is Vice President of Open Systems Development at IBM and is also a board member of the Linux Foundation said, “This is an opportunity for two longstanding influential organizations in the open source community to work together. The Linux Foundation and GNOME have complementary goals, missions, and skills. This relationship should help both organizations and the entire community.”

Read the press release

Behind the scene: Andrea Veri is new GNOME part-time SysAdmin.

Behind the scenes: Andrea Veri, the new GNOME part-time System Administrator.

Some days ago Andrea Veri was  chosen by the GNOME Foundation to support and maintain GNOME’s IT infrastructure.

His hiring comes at the end of a journey, during which Andrea has shown his technical abilities and passion for GNOME, and could be considered a sort of acknowledgement and thanksfor all the work he’s done so far.

The love between Andrea and Free Software started when he was a teenager and a Fedora user. In 2005, he discovered Ubuntu and got involved with its community very quickly. Andrea joined the Ubuntu Italian community, then became an Ubuntu and MOTU member. In 2010, he became a Debian Developer and started his collaboration with the Debian GNOME Team. The deep experience Andrea collected while managing both .deb and .rpm packaging systems makes him very comfortable working with different environments. It’s not easy to comprehend the role of a System Administrator, because that’s the person behind the machine. A System Administrator must ensure that the infrastructure running is constructed in a workmanlike manner, and ensure that everyone involved in the community has the tools to work at their best.

There are many key activities behind a community as large as GNOME, some of them considered mission-critical, such as the upkeep of the web server or of http://git.gnome.org, where developers store and collaborate on GNOME’s code.

“The work of system administrators is often undervalued”, says Andrea, “but I firmly believe that having a good infrastructure allows us to optimize several processes within a community or a company”.

This could be one of the reasons that led to the creation of events such as the
 Sysadmin Appreciation Day, when you can express your gratitude for the hard work of System Administrators everywhere.

Andrea’s perspective and plans for the infrastructure team have changed radically since he was hired by the GNOME Foundation. Previously, as a contributor, he wouldn’t plan effective changes, but he can now focus on dozens of things to do and plan more radical changes to the GNOME infrastructure, such as installing services like Gitorious, ownCloud, etc.

«This hiring is a dream that came true. Working for the DE that has marked the history of Linux and the Free Software movement is both an honour and a pleasure beyond compare. There’s much to do regarding to GNOME’s infrastructure – you can check the todo list – but I’ll do of my best».

The effort which Andrea spent over the last several years has qualified him to be accepted as a GNOME Foundation member,  and,  some time thereafter, to serve as the Chairman of the GNOME Foundation  Membership Committee. For now, best of luck to Andrea with his new responsibilities, and thanks to GNOME System Administrators everywhere!

GNOME 2010-2011 Annual Report

link to the GNOME 2010-11 Annual Report

The Web Version of the GNOME 2010-11 Annual Report is available for download (2.4 MB, PDF).

The report, initially made available at the annual GNOME Foundation’s membership meeting, is a summary of GNOME community’s activities for the two years from 2010 to 2011. These years have been very exciting. A lot of love and energy was focused on releasing GNOME 3 which is the cornerstone of GNOME’s new vision of the free desktop that the project will be improving and polishing in the coming years.

The report includes several articles about the transition to GNOME 3, accounts of various community activities and events around the world, interviews with GNOME Foundation members, and general information about GNOME Foundation development.

The GNOME 2010-11 Report is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license 3.0.

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.