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Are You A Friend of Gnome?

From the donation page: "Love GNOME? Want to give back to the community of mostly volunteer developers who have worked so hard to make GNOME the powerful, flexible, friendly, fun desktop that it is?" There are a number of contribution levels a person can join at, so if you love Gnome, consider helping the foundation out.

20 of 297 comments (clear)

  1. They need to provide more info by Tiamat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, I like gnome a lot. I might even donate money, but the problem with this link is they they don't offer any specific details about what happens with this money? Does it go to administration? How so? To major coders? which? Who qualifies? Bandwidth? Why does the Gnome Foundation do that requires our financial support?

    To make matters worse, contributions seem to be handled via Ximian. I have no problem with Ximian forming as a company, or their desire to make money. Still, I'm not entirely confortable with a donation to a company. So, is Ximian providing accounting/banking services here, or are they going to directly benefit from this contribution?

    I'm sure there are good answers to all of these questions, but they're not present on the donation page, and they should be.

    1. Re:They need to provide more info by josh+crawley · · Score: 3, Funny

      ---"Yes, I like gnome a lot. I might even donate money, but the problem with this link is they they don't offer any specific details about what happens with this money? Does it go to administration? How so? To major coders? which? Who qualifies? Bandwidth? Why does the Gnome Foundation do that requires our financial support?"

      I know where its gonna go.....

      It's gonna pay for the slashdotting we gave 'em. heh

  2. Where to? by The+Pi-Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, two things. Being the one I am for not reading the article :), exactly where is this all going? Into Miguel de Icaza's pockets? RMS's? Whose? And two, if you're looking for a good place to donate, donate to UserFriendly. There, we know where it's going. Great comic strip. A little cash-strapped though.

    --j

  3. Alternative news story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Not to start a holy war, but:
    From the donation page: "Love KDE? Want to give back to the community of mostly volunteer developers who have worked so hard to make KDE the powerful, flexible, friendly, fun desktop that it is?" There are a number of contribution levels a person can join at, so if you love KDE, consider helping the foundation out.
  4. Re:I love gnome, KDE just not up to it by Bitsy+Boffin · · Score: 5, Informative
    I've tried each WM, but I keep on coming back to GNOME.
    nit.pick();

    GNOME isn't a window manager. Neither is KDE for that matter (although KDE has it's own window manager I think (kwm ?) but GNOME does not).

    --
    NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
  5. Slashdot Site Updates by EdMcMan · · Score: 5, Funny
    Slashdot, a "geek serving" news service, owned by OSDN recently has announced they will stop announcing news, instead begging people for money, while having ads on their website.

    CmdrTaco said during an interview: "Well, slashdot kept getting slashdotted, so we decided to post useless crap that no one would want to look at it, and could find elsewhere if they did want to look at it. Yes, that's it."

    Some rumors from the slashdot team have indicated that perhaps the person that started this new trend, "chrisd", was really under the influence of heroin, and his /friends were covering for him. This same source said the new trend could be over as soon as the next post. More news as it comes in.

  6. From our base on skull island by sam_handelman · · Score: 4, Funny

    What about the enemies of GNOME? We, the members of COBOLD, oppose project GNOME, their GUI, and all that they stand for! We will not rest until every member of the GNOME development team of lies in a shallow grave. Our leader, COBOL-commander, will overthrow the present order by military force, and restore the glorious days of punchcards and Cobol! Co-bolllll!

    As for the "friends" of GNOME - we suggest you cower in terror lest you share the developers fate!

    Incidentally, the classic "Kobold" was a spirit of the home or hearth - Kobe holt = hut goblin. The dog-headed lizardmen from D&D are, as many D&D things are, an artifact of somebody's supplementary artwork, and have no "basis" in mythology (although the guy who did the drawings for the Monster Manual is as qualified to make up mythology as anybody; it was all made up at some point.)

    Etymology of Gnome.

    Etymology of Kobold. Search the page for "cobalt".

    --
    The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  7. Re:huge strides by delta407 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Have you used NT4 on a P90? (Recall that the minimum requirements are under a 20 MHz CPU.) It's quite snappy compared to xfree86 on a 233.

    And besides which, X is slower on the same hardware than Windows is. (Not to diss X, because I use it on a daily basis; I'm using it right now.) But, that's a fact of life. Gnome runs on a 1.0 GHz about as fast as Windows 98 runs on a 300 MHz. Hardware shouldn't have to come along; Gnome should (attempt to) keep pace with Windows on the same hardware.

  8. You need to read by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    Checks are payable to the GNOME Foundation. The GNOME foundation is not Ximian.
    Anyone who had the slightest interest in finding out what the GNOME foundation is could easily find out. Anyone just interested in trolling would simply jump to ludicrous conclusions and post them on Slashdot...

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
  9. Slashdot is biased?! by HanzoSan · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Why advertisements to gnome donations but not KDE, not Enlightenment, no, no posts on that?

    Why support Gnome? Gnome has enough support from Sun and IBM, support KDE, they dont have big companies helping them out like Ximian, IBM, Sun etc.

    --
    If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
  10. A little off topic but... by DanThe1Man · · Score: 3, Interesting

    is it pronouced "ga-nOme" or "nOme"

    and yes, saying its pronouced "Gnome" would be a funny reply.

  11. What they don't show on the back of the T... by Flower · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I donated $500 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

    --
    I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
  12. Re:my wallet hurts... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Once again... like a vast majority of the IT industry, you fail to realize that the definition of "free" does not start and stop at the exchange of currency.

    This is one of the dangers with Open Source accepting the "freeware" label. I've seen the term used more and more within the industry when referring to Open Source. And its the same problem that's faced Open Source software for years - price isn't everything.

    Sure - "free beer" is nice. We all like freebies - assuming they don't blow up in our face. I've been involved in projects where the low price has been a major help. But I have also worked on projects where there are ample funds for any needed technology... and Open Source software STILL held value.

    It is all the other aspects of "free software" where the real value comes in to play.

  13. Speaking of misreading by Tiamat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think someone does need to learn to read more carefully, and it's not me.

    I wrote that contributions seem to be handled via Ximian. From the page:

    GNOME Foundation
    c/o Ximian
    401 Park Drive, 3rd West
    Boston, MA 02215

    And, yes, someone can figure out who the Gnome Foundation is, which tells them absolutely nothing about how they plan to use this money.

  14. Re:my wallet hurts... by edrugtrader · · Score: 3, Funny

    once again the vast majority of the IT industry fails to recognize sarcasm and makes total ass of self. said 'IT industry' also spending much of their time in moms basement.

    --
    MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
  15. hmm, donate $$ to Gnome or Perl? by Dr.+Awktagon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's see, I have $50 burning a hole in my pocket, let's choose between Gnome or Perl.

    Gnome (and KDE for that matter) crashes a little too much for my tastes. The UI design could use a little more simplification and consistency. So maybe they need the money, to help improve these things. That would be good.

    Perl, on the other hand, is a language that makes me money. I program in Perl and people pay the big dollar. So maybe I owe Perl a little.

    Gnome has this guy that likes .NET. In fact, he likes .NET so much it's a little creepy.

    Perl has this guy that looks like Weird Al, who's pretty cool. And this other guy that writes packages based on quantum mechanics and other mind-twisting stuff.

    Gnome might be moving to the .NET runtime someday, which means Microsoft could possibly have a little more legal power over the project than I'd like. That could be dangerous, maybe I shouldn't give them any money.

    Perl 6, though, looks like it has lost all touch with reality (I think it's pretty cool, but then again, that says more about my grip on reality than anything else). In fact I believe programming in Perl 6 will be like taking a hit of LSD. LSD is bad (the flashbacks man) so maybe they don't need my money either.

    Tough one... I think I'll just keep my $50 for now.............

    1. Re:hmm, donate $$ to Gnome or Perl? by GauteL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This whole .NET stuff and GNOME just has to stop. It is just FUD.

      Ximian is backing Mono which if successful will become a nice OPEN SOURCE development platform for UNIX (and GNOME).

      The worst thing that could happen would be that Mono would not be able to run application made for .NET, but the development platform would still have plenty of value as a very nice (kind of) language independent development platform for UNIX, and GNOME. KDE could create bindings for mono as well.

      You don't have to use Mono at all for GNOME-development. It's just a (nice) alternative if you like a clean unified oo-API and would rather not deal with memory management.

      Mono also has nothing to do with the core of GNOME, apart that there are some GNOME-hackers working on Mono. Mono is not part of GNOME.

      Personally I like Java, and would like to see better Java-integration in GNOME, but mono looks pretty nice (and close to a Java-api for GNOME) as well.

  16. How come by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linus never asked us to pony up a little spare change for the kernel? Looks like he is doing pretty good for himself....

    If I learned one thing from my dad growing up it was when you start looking to make money from your hobbies then it's to much like your real job -- and maybe time to find a new hobby. Among his many hobby cycles, he restored old saddles and other antiques -- he would spend hundreds of hours on a project for little more than the money for materials and the gleam in his eyes when he finished a project -- when I told he he was crazy to not try to make money doing it -- he said something like "They pay me from 7 AM - 5 PM everyday to do something that has never been fun -- and if I ever have to take money from this it will mean that it has stopped being fun..." When he got burned out he would pick a new hobby.

    It never hurt to get a day job. That way you can make money to afford to spend the evenings and weekends doing things you enjoy.

    --
    (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
  17. Re:Begging as a business model by kevinank · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Ya know, I just don't see begging being a viable business model.

    Presumably the Gnome Foundation isn't a business but a non-profit. Most non-profits exist on either membership fees, volunteer labor, grants, or donations. The real question isn't whether the model works, it is whether there is any significant interest in philanthropy among open source advocates.

    Personally I'll probably be donating at about the same level I donate to KQED. Less than I give to the EFF or the ACLU, but more than I give to the Sierra Club or my mayor's reelection campaign.

    --
    LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
  18. Misreading? by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, I simply realise that the address a cheque happens to be delivered to is not significant, who the cheque is made out to is.

    They clearly say they will use the money to "provide development, education and promotion for GNOME worldwide". If you want to be a friend of GNOME and have something more specific you'd like your money to go towards then just tell them. As their charter states "The foundation will be in charge of disbursing these funds to the benefit of GNOME and, to the extent possible, in accordance with the wishes of the benefactor."

    There is nothing hidden here. There is info on the foundation pages, the foundation mailing list is open for all to read. There might not be a vast amount of info on the friends page but that is because they aren't putting on a hard sell. It's there for you if you feel that you'd like to contribute, not trying to make you feel that you should.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park