Category: gnome

When I took this job it was agreed that part of my job, but not all of it, would be fundraising. However, because of the economy I find myself thinking about fundraising more often than not these days.

For example, take hackfests. Hackfests are events where you get all the key developers for a project together in one place and they spend a few days or a week discussing issues, planning future releases and writing code. As most open source work happens virtually, hackfests are great opportunity to meet in person and make a lot of progress on things like planning a new release or a particular issue.

Last year many of the GNOME Foundation sponsor companies sponsored hackfests. They were happy with the outcomes – good conversations, good code, great planning sessions – and at the beginning of this year they were interested in sponsoring more hackfests. So we were tentatively planning for about six hackfests this year. However, when we went to raise funding for the first one, a GTK+ hackfest, we soon found that while companies still thought hackfests were a good idea, but, with a couple of exceptions, they no longer had any budget to help fund them. (The notable exceptions: Intel is funding a GNOME documentation hackfest in June and Igalia wanted to sponsor the GTK+ hackfest that we had to cancel.)

So what do we do?

1. Find more economical ways to run hackfests. We can plan them close to other events where people might already be, have smaller hackfests, coordinate multiple hackfests at the same time, etc. (It disappointed me that nobody has taken Nokia up on their offer to host related hackfests at the Danish Mozilla/Maemo Weekend.)
2. Find additional funding sources. There are many types of funding out there, some of them easier than others to acquire. For example, there are grants, which might take us a while but could provide substantial funding. There is individual support. The Free Software Foundation is primarily funded by individuals that believe in their cause, not companies. At $10/month, they have enough individual sponsors to support a much larger organization than the GNOME Foundation. So we can and should encourage GNOME users and supporters to sign up for Friends of GNOME.
3. Find other ways to accomplish what hackfests do. While there is no substitute for face to face conversation, some of the work can be accomplished by virtual hackfests, dedicated hack days, setting goals and milestones, …

Other ideas? Thoughts?

Against my dad's best advice, I'm going to admit that I don't feel like I'm the best person to give a "State of GNOME" talk. I mean, it's an open source project. I don't run it, I don't manage it and people not only don't ask me for permission to do things, they don't make a point of making sure I know everything. And that's good! I find out most of my GNOME news the way everyone else does – through blogs, mailing lists and wiki's. We are an effective open source software project and communication is good. That said, I'm happy to help spread the word of all the good things GNOME is up to. (And if you'd like to help too, please join the GNOME Marketing team!)

So, here's what I think I will say about the State of GNOME talk the Collaboration Summit this week. Feel free to add points in the comments or point me to more info. (If you are going to be at the Collaboration Summit and would like to help give this presentation as a member of GNOME or help with QA, let me know!)

The GNOME desktop is alive and well. Despite rumors that everyone and everything is moving to the browser, the desktop is here to stay.

It is true that the desktop is evolving. People are using their desktop differently. You have netbooks, smartphones, multiple desktops, online apps, … so what people expect and need out of their desktop is now different. (And to be honest, most users don't care about their desktop. They care about their email or their social network or the app they use for work. And the desktop or their phone or their netbook just gets them there. You care a little bit, like you care what kind of shoes you wear or what kind of car you drive, but most of the time, you just want it to work painlessly and easily.)

Luckily there are a lot of people who think about the desktop a lot. They make sure it works really well for all the others that just need it to access their stuff. Who are these people? Volunteers, free software lovers, passionate developers, translators and designers determined to make technology accessible to all.

The GNOME community has 2000+ contributors. 400 of those are members of the GNOME Foundation. 300-500 come together every year for GUADEC. 40% of them are paid to work on GNOME, the other 60% do it on their own time. The 40% are paid by lots of different companies. These 20 sponsor the GNOME Foundation – the list continues to grow and there are companies outside of this list that hire GNOME developers.

All these people the community –
contributors and users alike – as well as the companies, have
a shared mission and values. Although the GNOME mission is articulated in many different ways by different people, it's basically to provide a free and open desktop platform for the world, accessible to all regardless of ability, financial resources or nationality. And by desktop, I mean your interface to your technology. GNOME also applies to netbooks and smartphones.

The values of the GNOME community have been clearly defined and articulated over time:

• Accessibility. I've had a chance to work a bit with the a11y folks lately – they're a great team.
  Accessibility means making sure the technology you have works for you,
  regardless of whether you can hear the beeps that you have new mail
  (maybe it flashes at you instead), regardless of whether you can read
  that size 8 font document someone sent you (what were they thinking? –
  at least you can easily magnify it), regardless even if you can double
  click your mouse.  And much, much more. They have screencasts online. We're going to have 2-3 summer interns from HFOSS working on GNOME a11y this summer.

• Internationalized. GNOME is internationalized into many, many languages and the number grows – daily it seems. Recently the GNOME board was contacted by someone from Nigeria who wanted someone from GNOME to go speak at an open source conference in Nigeria. I have to admit that we (especially me) were skeptical at first but it turns out they even have a GNOME Users Group in Nigeria that's been translating GNOME!

• Easy to use. A lot of what you see in GNOME 3.0 is intended to make GNOME easier to use. GNOME also places importance on making smart default choices for the user.

• Beauty. Beauty as in look good but also as in function well, elegantly, simply.

• Working well with companies. GNOME has a long tradition of working well with companies and has developed things like 6 month release cycles and the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board to maintain those working relationships.

• Having fun!

GNOME 3.0. A state of GNOME talk would not be complete without mentioning GNOME 3.0! We announced GNOME 3.0 last week. Actually it was announced at GUADEC last summer but there's been a lot of activity kicked off last week by the release team. (And you can read the whole account on the Planning for 3.0 website.)

In the Planning document, the release team first addresses vision – GNOME 3.0 needs an overall vision for the entire GNOME project. "What we are missing is people blessing one specific vision and making
it official, giving goals to the community so we can all work together
in the same direction." These days GNOME includes not "just" the desktop but a lot of applications. We need a vision and a direction for the entire GNOME project.

They called out 3 areas of focus for GNOME 3.0:

• User Experience
• Streamlining of the Platform
• Promotion of GNOME

On the user experience side they focused on two projects:

• GNOME Shell is a new way of managing your panels, launching applications, finding documents, etc.
• Document management. GNOME Zeitgeist is a new way of finding documents. The days of carefully storing documents into organized folders are over for most people. Zeitgeist adds most recently opened, tags, comments, location, etc to help you find your data.

On the steam lining side of things, the release team is working on deprecating old stuff in an organized fashion while adding new technologies like Clutter and support more languages like Javascript.

Promotion is primarily marketing. Promoting GNOME, attracting new developers, highlighting applications (I'd guess that most people don't think of applications when they think of GNOME), launching a much needed redesigned website.

Other changes the release team called out as worth mentioning:

• Desktop Testing which was launched recently.
• Art/Design. There's been lots of work on theming (like at the GTK+ Theming Hackfest) and we hope to have good collaboration between developers and designers.
• People and social networking. A lot of work has gone into the telepathy framework enabling interaction not only between people and apps but between people.
• Mobile:
  the GNOME Mobile platform was first introduced in GNOME 2.24 and since then a lot of the work GNOME developers have done has been towards making desktop technologies function well in the mobile space – devices with small screens, limited processing or alternate input methods like touch screens.

So come join us in developing the future of the desktop. We need everyone from coders to designers, from testers to writers, from promoters to users.

What would you add to the State of GNOME?

I could go the cliche route: the world is changing.

I could go the proverbial route: we're the proverbial frog in the pot being boiled alive.

Or I could just try to explain what I see.

The browser, the internet and the desktop are merging, and while I think we'll work it out eventually, I think we need to work hard to make sure we work it out with a free and open source solution first. (We need to solve the problem before Apple or Microsoft and make sure our solution is a great one!)

Actually I think the internet has already changed everything and the browser has been playing the go between between the internet and the desktop for a long time now.

Mozilla has been working on bringing the internet to users and because of them users know what this new use model can look like – they've tasted what it's like to have seamless integration between at least the browser on your desktop and the application.

GNOME is working on it. Partially with GNOME Mobile and partially with GNOME 3.0.

While most people outside of GNOME Mobile probably think of cell phones when they think of mobile, GNOME Mobile is really about making the desktop fit the new form factors (phones, netbooks, devices, …) and making it work well with a non traditional user interface. And more often than not the nontraditional user interface is a small screen connecting the user to the internet.

In PCMag Tim Bajarin says:

I'm glad that Linux and GNOME have already been doing this for a number of years.

Now I think the next step is not making them talk together but making the parts into one seamless user experience. The average iPhone user probably doesn't think about maps as an application on their phone, a browser and some data out there somewhere. It's just maps. It's there on their phone when they need it. If they have a big server in their home, they're not going to want to worry where dad stashed the movies on the hard drive, they just want to see the movies they have, with all the data about each movie and actor pulled from the internet.

A smartphone user no longer really cares about their operating system, they care about what the phone can do, what apps they can put on it. So it's up to us, those building the operating system, desktop, and applications to make sure they all work together to make applications users want.

So why am I harping on this? Because I see lots of work going into the desktop. I see lots of work going into the browser. I see lots of work going into the apps. But I don't see lots of requests coming from application developers to the GNOME Mobile team. Or lots of conversations happening between different application developers, desktop developers and browser developers.

We provide GNOME Mobile as building blocks for mobile devices but it won't meet users' needs unless there's more interaction and more conversation between the device manufacturers, GNOME Mobile, the browser developers and the application developers.

Like I said yesterday, it's important we understand the new user model and develop for it.

So come join the conversation. GNOME Mobile is one place. Bringing the power of the desktop to devices of all shapes and sizes.

The GNOME Online Desktop project is another. They are working on bringing internet apps and data to the traditional desktop.

Please feel free to suggest others.

Frog in a pot picture by purpleslog.

I get asked a lot what I do, exactly, as executive director of the GNOME Foundation.

First off, I want to say I’m really glad I work for an organization where people feel comfortable asking “what do you do?” It shows they care about the organization and are not afraid to ask tough questions. Have you ever asked your boss what they did, exactly?

Secondly, I have to admit that when I first got asked, that first day on the job at GUADEC, I wanted to go “I don’t know!! What do you think I should be doing?” (I did ask the “What do you think I should be doing part” of a few people and I’m always interested in hearing anyone’s answer to that question.)

Ok, so to the point, what do I do? I’m going to answer in three parts.

• First, the things I think I should be doing, the things I was hired to do.
• Second, a sampling of what I worked on in the past week.
• Third, a whole list of things I think need to be done and I’d like to work on.

My “Job Description”

Here’s a picture I drew a long time ago about how I see my job:

(Obviously I was not hired for my artistic talents, great as they are!)

I think of my job as having five parts.

1. One is to be the eyes and ears for GNOME. Part of it is just to be the person that people can come to, not so much as a representative of the community, but as the interface for the community–a single point of contact as well as someone who attends conferences and does things like this to promote awareness of GNOME.
2. Fundraising. This has two parts.
   First is working closely with our sponsors. The GNOME Foundation is funded by donations from volunteers as well as large donations from our corporate sponsors. Part of my job is finding new ones and working closely with existing ones to make sure that their relationship with GNOME is a good one and that the Foundation offers what they need.
   The second is finding new fundraising opportunities. Like our recently launched Friends of GNOME that enables you to sign up for small monthly donations. (That wasn’t just my idea by the way. I’m glad we have it – the FSF’s program is extremely successful. If our community can duplicate that success, you will see the GNOME Foundation grow tremendously. So sign up and spread the word!)
3. Along with that comes marketing. We have a marketing team, but part of my job is to figure out what we want to do with GNOME marketing and help set up the infrastructure so that people can help work on marketing. Check out my lists below – there’s lots of marketing stuff on it.
4. Business development. What opportunities should we be pushing for, what should we be watching for, where could we make a move? This is why I’m involved in GNOME Mobile. There’s a huge opportunity for GNOME in the mobile space and we have to act now. I also think we need to take a more aggressive stand. Aggressive is not the right word. Perhaps holistic. We have to stand for free and open source on the mobile platform – not just pieces of it but everything people need – like we do on the desktop.
5. Housekeeping. (That’s the broom in the picture, by the way.) Part of my job is helping to make sure the day-to-day stuff happens. We have a lot of things going on in GNOME with lots of people working on multiple projects and lots of ideas floating around. One of my jobs is to help make sure good ideas get done and have the resources they need. That’s pretty much what I did with Friends of GNOME. The idea was there, people were willing to work on it, I just pushed a bit. (Luckily we also have Rosanna!)

A sampling of what I do (work-wise that is)

Here’s some of the things I’ve done in the past week:

• Emailed each of our corporate sponsors with an estimate of money we’ll be requesting from them in 2009. Asked how and when they’d like to receive requests for invoices and if they had any suggestions about the plan.
• Had the GNOME Advisory Board meeting. We did a roundtable and asked what people were working on in GNOME in 2009.
• Helped launch Friends of GNOME. Yeah! (Have you signed up yet?) Sent out email to all the press people I know to let them know about it.
• Talked to a company who would like to sponsor the GNOME Foundation. They invited me to meet with their architectural committee and asked for the brochure. (Added that to my marketing wish/todo list.)
• Worked on the Desktop Summit sponsor brochure with a couple of the KDE folks. Figured out who was going to approach which companies about sponsoring the Summit/GUADEC/Akademy.
• Set up meetings for next week with most of our corporate sponsors to touch base and get their feedback. (Still have a few meetings to set up.)
• Gave a talk at the Denver JUG. The talk wasn’t about GNOME but I saw it as a chance to spread the word about open source, enabling open source fans to use more in their companies. Also put in a plug for Friends of GNOME and got to explain to quite a few people what GNOME was exactly. (Did I mention we need some more marketing?) I spent quite a bit of time preparing the talk – I very much believe if you are going to use an hour of 40 peoples’ time, you should use it well.
• Had a call with the KDE and GNOME boards about how we are handling the finances for the Desktop Summit. Got our attorney to review the written draft.
• Spent a few minutes thinking about what I would like to see in the desktop/netbook track of the OpenSource World conference. (I’m organizing the desktop/netbook track. Let me know if you have good ideas for speakers, including yourself.)
• Joined the GNOME accessibility team meeting to talk about what our two interns in the FOSS Humanitarian program will work on this summer.
• Exchanged an email about the MBA/marketing/business development internship program I’d like to get started.
• Read, answered, participated in an incredible amount of email, IMs, Twits and IRC chats. (And I think these are an important part of getting my job done, so I try never to complain about having too much email because I wouldn’t really want less. I just try to be as effective as possible with my communications.)

Things I’d like to see get done (by me or others)

I’m not going to elaborate on them since each one could be a post (or set of posts) all in themselves.

• GNOME Marketing 2009 goals – a list of all the marketing stuff we’d like to do but more importantly clear goals and priorities.
• A marketing/business development internship program. We have interns that write code, why not interns that help with marketing tasks?
• GNOME Foundation sponsorship brochure for corporate sponsors.
• A GNOME merchandise store.
• Storyboards and slides. Lots of different slides that lots of different people could use to talk about GNOME in different ways and different venues.
• Fundraising contacts. I’m trying to reach out to more of the mobile and netbook vendors.
• Fundraising “marketing”. How do we spread the word, use social networks, get ads, etc?
• Usability study. I mention it a lot, other people mention it a lot. I did exchange email this week with a usability company that might be willing to help us out at a greatly reduced cost if we share results and publicity.
• System administrator. We’d love to hire a part time system administrator. We need a few more regular corporate sponsors to feel comfortable with this. (Or more committed income from the sponsors we have.)
• Setting up a SugarCRM-like system to track Foundation stuff. (Dave Neary got SugarCRM to agree to give us a free account which is why I mention them.)
• Making sure we are on the right track with GNOME Mobile.
• ….

So, that is what I do as executive director of the GNOME Foundation. What would you like to see me do?

I ran across the GNOME Advisory Board Minutes from June 2003, back when I was on the advisory board representing HP:

Stormy Peters did a presentation about her work on the Open Source
Program Office at HP, policy, review for releases, and the OSS portal.
The Foundation provides:
  - a bridge between community and the users
  - credibility
  - product management
  - communication, especially roadmap
which are the main values from a corporate perspective.
Stormy devoted a significant portion of her presentation to the role
of the advisory board. She says that the advisory board could contribute
more to the GNOME project and could be more helpful to the foundation.
She urged us to make better use of the advisory board, and of her
resources in particular.

Well, the GNOME Foundation is certainly making better use of my resources now! We could still do something about that roadmap though.

Advisory board members often ask for the GNOME roadmap. (Or the GTK+ roadmap or the you name it roadmap it.) They need it to make their plans. They need it to explain to their management and their peers what GNOME is up to. I think even if we didn't have concrete dates on the roadmap, we could still create one. The idea is to show where you're going, not necessarily all the fine detail of how you'll get there.

For example, recently someone contacted us for a list of GNOME goals for 2009. I was getting ready to jump in with some high level, vague answer when Vincent Untz jumped in with this great list of things that might happen in 2009. I went wow, where'd you get that from? To which he responded, in typical Vincent fashion, that it was only in the heads of crazy people who try to follow everything. (And I am very, very impressed with how much crazy people like Vincent follow, keep track of and know. 😉

But what if we created a GNOME technologies roadmap of all the crazy things that might happen in 2009-2010? Then we could color code it with likelihood of happening and update it a few times a year. We could also mark who was working on what, what areas needed help, …

Every month we have GNOME advisory board meetings that are designed to bring our sponsors and our community closer together – to open up channels of communication. The topics so far have covered things from usability to GTK+ 3.0 to finances. There's usually a short presentation by the team and then there's time for discussion.

From the advisory board members it's a chance to hear in more detail what the GNOME community is doing, as well as the other advisory board members, and to give feedback. In addition, since we invite the appropriate community members or additional people from advisory board companies, it's a chance to meet the experts in the community.

From the community perspective the meetings are a chance to show off their project, get feedback from downstream users and make sure that sponsors know about their project.

The meetings are held the second Wednesday of every month. This month we'll be holding it a week late (this Wednesday) and we'll be talking about upstream, downstream relationships.

If you have any topics you'd like to see covered, please let me know. We're especially interested in hearing from community members who'd like to share their project with the advisory board members.