For details follow the link. This is nothing more than the headlines.
Finances
The GNOME Foundation reserves policy says that the buffer is too low to run at a deficit any longer, which it has done for three years. This years budget is a break-even budget.Strategy & Fundraising
A five year strategic plan has been prepared and a draft approved by the board. A variety of fundraising activies will be launched over the coming months.Board Development
More directors are being added to reduce workload on individual board members. Non-voting officer seats will be added for the same reason.Elections
Annual board elections is coming up, 6 seats are being elected.Wait, I thought they are recipient of Sovereign Tech Fund. Didn't that help them with their budget?
It's probably best to assume that since that funding was provided to be used with a specific focus, they didn't (and/or couldn't) use it for the Foundation's maintenance.
Likely earmarked for development.
And Gnome Foundation handles non-development stuff, like hackathons, Guadec, community outreach, liaising with other projects/governments/companies, etc. not to mention boring legal stuff like copyright of their name and icons and all that jazz.
It's basically the non-development part of the project.
You know, they were too busy wasting money on reinventing the wheel and coming up with "a vision" to be able to sort their budget.
Wasting? Gnome is amazing. Money and time extremely well spent.
I get that some people hate that Gnome isn't another WinUX desktop, but they need to get over it. Either accept it and adapt to a more modern workflow, add an extension like Dash to Panel, or use one of the dozen other desktop environments, most of which are designed with a WinUX or something similar.
I also don't really see why you're putting quotes around vision lol. Every project has a vision.
"GNOME Foundation To Focus On Fundraising After Years Running A Deficit"
So... If I throw half a million at them I'll get native desktop icons back?
Desktop icons were removed because they're (at least in the devs' opinions), a poor solution. They're always covered as soon as you have a program open, add clutter, and on most machines, the desktop just becomes a dumping ground for rubbish that really shouldn't be there. I'm sure we've all seen systems with all kinds of crap strewn about the user's desktop.
Tbh, I can't say I disagree. I also think they're a bad solution and that Gnome shouldn't chase a feature just because people have it on Windows. Gnome makes zero attempt to be a traditional Windows-like desktop. It irks some people, but it's the devs' choice and you don't have to use their software.
Gnome foundation could have a billion in the bank, they still wouldn't add that, because it's not about not being able to afford to implement it, they just don't want it in their project.
If you want them, installing an extension will probably take under 10 seconds. Some distros that use Gnome already have it installed out of the box.
This is one of the reason I love GNOME's philosophy. They don't dogmatically follow convention and it shapes up the desktop to have a unique workflow that I really miss on other operating systems.
If you are wanting a traditional desktop you shouldn't use gnome. You can arrange your icons on the overview screen.
Call up Microsoft and Amazon again. They will send some money your way
