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How GNOME and KDE Spend Their Money
bluescarni writes 'A side-by-side analysis of GNOME's and KDE's quarterly reports sheds some light (and dispels some myths) on the nature and the quantity of the funds of the two projects.'
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TFA has no charts or graphics. Is this why the summery has no real info beyond the link?
Shocking!!!
GNOME: beer & smokes
KDE: blackjack & hookers
How GNOME and KDE spend their money
Sep 16, 2009 10:20pm GMT
Bruce Byfield
Quarterly reports are the stuff of business. In most people's minds, they are as far from the spirit of free and open source software (FOSS) as anyone can imagine. All the same, as non-profit organizations, many FOSS projects issue them. And while your first reaction may be to avoid quarterly reports, they can give some insights into projects, especially if you read between the lines.
For instance, if you have been assuming, as I have, that GNOME has more corporate support than KDE, and a larger budget, a look at the latest report for GNOME and KDE may surprise you. Together, the two reports give an entirely different impression than you might assume.
Neither quarterly report has much in common with the glossy publications offered by multi-national publications. Both are PDF files with undistinguished layouts and a minimum of graphics. Even head shots of people mentioned or reporting are absent. Compared to corporate reports, those of both GNOME and KDE are practical, unadorned publications.
Of the two, GNOME's (its first, covering June, July, and August 2009) comes closest to the spirit of a corporate report. It includes not only the obligatory message from GNOME's executive directory, but also reports from the Release, Bugsquad, Marketing, Web, Usability, Accessibility, Documentation, Art and Localizations Teams. Although some of these reports were outdated by the time the report was released, their overall impression is of a multi-tiered multi-national's executives reporting in. In general, the report fits in well with GNOME's traditional tendency to favor the corporate side and with its recent interest in marketing. Like most quarterly reports, it is as much a public relations document as an effort to provide concrete information (although it does both). The one non-corporate note is at the beginning, when executive director Stormy Peters asks readers, "please let us know if you find it useful!"
In comparison, KDE's report for March through June 2009 is less than one quarter the size of GNOME's. Although it includes the usual redundant introduction -- this time by Aaron Seigo, it contains far fewer individual summaries from GNOME's report. These differences may reflect the greater experience that KDE e.V. -- the German non-profit that manages KDE -- has with the whole idea of reports, and has the advantage that it is more likely to be read completely. At the same time, because it is so short, the KDE report seems less corporate, an impression that is fitting for the project's more community-based orientation.
Beyond these general impressions, what is most interesting is the financial accounting in the reports. The two reports are not strictly comparable, given that many FOSS activities occur in the northern hemisphere's summer rather than spring. Nor is it always obvious in either report what falls under each line item. Still, some differences emerge.
For instance, GNOME lists an income of just over $102,000 for the quarter covered by its report. This income includes $65,000 from the Desktop Summit, $20,000 from "advisory board fees" (which I interpret mainly as donations from corporate sponsors), and $12,400 collected by the Friends of GNOME, a promotional and fund-raising project.
Omitting the Desktop Summit as a one-time source of income, these figures mean that GNOME has traditionally relied on corporate supporters. Corporate supporters continue to provide the bulk of GNOME's income, but the total from Friends of GNOME suggests that GNOME may be switching to a more community-based source of income. However, given that GNOME reported an approximate income of $54,000 per quarter in 2008 (ht
They spend it on usability studies and graphic design, isn't it obvious?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Considering most large enterprise distros (RHEL, SUSE, etc) ship with KDE as the main DE, it shouldn't come as a shock that they are growing. That, and the infamous statements made by Linus concerning KDE vs. Gnome, perhaps?
What else do dot-com startups need to spend money on when they never actually have to sell product and make money?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This is so cool. So let me get this straight. I am using free software but someone is paying to have parts of it developed?! Man, Microsoft must have REALLY pissed some people off a while back! :) :) :)
It would be only logical to invest a significant portion of their liquid assets into services of adult entertainers and various recreational-drug paraphernalia.
Also, blackjack.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
KDE already spent donated money buying all buttons and check-boxes available on the market.
839*929
> When elephants fight it is the grass under their feet that suffers the most.
True. Also, when elephants make love it is also the grass under their feet that suffers the most.
Go somewhere random
This seems to be saying that the GNOME and KDE organizations' funding are not a significant factor in the development of their related software.
In other words, this comparison tells very little of the actual funding that supports the development of either system. Presumably, those efforts are primarily funded through other entities (such as Trolltech, Linux distros, embedded device makers, etc.)
How are we supposed to have a GNOME v. KDE flame war without any significant data? That's like trying to have a debate about whether EMACS or vi is a superior editor on a device that has no keyboard!
Crap, I need a car analogy; can someone help me out here?
I think the article misses many things. The main complaint from KDE people is not that the GNOME Foundation is richer than KDE eV. It is that Red Hat, Novell, Nokia, etc have a lot of developers working on GNOME on their payrolls. And that is in the order of the many million dollars.
It may also explain some of the differences in spending. The GNOME foundation possibly has to sponsor less developer travel if their employers pay for it already. And these corporation may give less to the Foundation and instead pay people to write code.
Of course they don't spend it all on beer. How ridiculous!
Hookers are way more expensive than beer.
/.'d already
Uses what?
Best Slashdot Co
"Neither quarterly report has much in common with the glossy publications offered by multi-national publications. Both are PDF files with undistinguished layouts and a minimum of graphics. Even head shots of people mentioned or reporting are absent. Compared to corporate reports, those of both GNOME and KDE are practical, unadorned publications."
What quarterly reports has this guy been reading? Playboy's? The reports I got from Berkshire Hathaway and GE are both pretty boring, unadorned, and filled with numbers and text. There is very little graphics. It just annoys me a bit that the author just wrote that, especially when it adds so little to the article itself. Stop writing for word count.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Sorry to say that the guy dribbles on for half the article about what the reports LOOK LIKE. Why? Dunno. I reached this paragraph about halfway through the document: "Beyond these general impressions, what is most interesting is the financial accounting in the reports..." and thought to myself "finally!" Honestly. I don't need someone to describe the appearance/layout/graphics of the report. I daresay most folks going to read the article don't either. Still, the finance info was interesting - as interesting as finance info ever is.
Those who have telepathy have no need to RTFA.
Well this may be the first time not being able to RTFA reveals something from TFA: Obviously they don't spend their money on high quality web hosting.
I hate printers.
If anyone is actually interested:
http://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-quarterly-2009Q1.pdf
http://foundation.gnome.org/reports/gnome-report-2009-Q2.pdf
What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I think it's the 'A', definitely. I mean, when someone says "A..." whatever, what exactly are you supposed to infer from that? It has always confused me.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
except TFA is not hosted on either
factor 966971: 966971
Woosh.
No, it's the people who are riding the elephants at the time that suffer most.
"So, in other words, you're completely fucking wrong, you idiot retard. God bless." - ShakaUVM
Who is ShakaUVM, and why do they think everyone is fucking wrong and an idiot retard?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I've used both environments over a long period of time on dedicated linux desktops. Both are competent products. Gnome looks good under Ubuntu 9.04. KDE 4.3 looks awesome as well. Both are sufficiently feature rich. Both add features rapidly on an ongoing basis. Both are solid products. The money is being well spent no matter how you look at it. I like that KDE has about a quarter million dollars banked. It shows strength and greater longevity.
My personal favorite, after using gnome for years, is KDE (which I have used since KDE 4.2). On a regular basis I see fixes and upgrades, though there still are some annoying aspects to it. After 25 years in computing and having dealt with Windows for most of that, KDE is probably the best and most well rounded desktop manager, even well beyond windows Win7, and certainly Vista. I have 4 Vista boxes in shop and I have a Win7 RC box for testing. I also have 3 Apple OSX systems. Nothing generally impresses me about them. I've watched compiz, beryl, and kwin turn into super feature rich, well balanced, polished and tailored products that in many ways existed before Vista was released.
Let's just say that I'm very impressed that these two organizations are producing products comparable or better than the competition. It is good to see that they are doing so much with so little.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
You see, A well regulated militia, is referred to in the sense, that it is necessary for maintaining the security of a free state. However, that is only there as explanation of why "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" is included as an amendment. You see, the people were the militia. I suspect it was the thought of he framers that the people of the country would actually care about their country and not just expect the government to take care of them, but actually be involved. The apathy of today has clouded the insight of the framers.
Eye Owl wise ewes a spill chucker - mcgrew
A bird, a sheep and an australian sex-toy?
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Jokes aside regarding how I shouldn't read the article, but the article doesn't even hint at where Gnome and KDE spend their money. Once again Bruce Byfield writes an empty piece of fluff.
I would be very interested in reading a nice, detailed article on where they do spend their money.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
> A bird, a sheep and an australian sex-toy?
Isn't the last item in your list just a synonym for sheep?
I assumed KDE blew all their money on purchasing ever larger icons and hiring liguists to figure out ways to add the letter 'K' to every word in the GUI .
>"advisory board fees"
Is that the money Microsoft gives Miguel making its way through?
>The reason why KDE is growing so much is because their community is insanely motivated.
I have to agree.
I've even been roped in by some of them to actually contribute on a project (I became management over a decade ago and mainly push papers now) and even though I have no time, they convinced me.
These numbers also impressed me. They come from the release of KDE4.3 a few weeks ago:
".The KDE community has fixed over 10,000 bugs and implemented almost 2,000 feature requests in the last 6 months.
Close to 63,000 changes were checked in..."
Wow.
Of course, mouth breathers and trolls will claim that developers dont listen to users.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Who needs real mode DOS anyway?
I mean, when someone says "A..." whatever, what exactly are you supposed to infer from that?
That they are Canadian?
> If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Good thing I have other plans!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I think Nokia support will be a very big deal.
.NET, etc. have been looking for for a long time.
The LGPL change for Qt is a very big deal. It means that you can write quality, cross-platform, mobile phone ready applications in any language with Qt bindings. That's a big deal. It's what java,
I think Nokia doing it this way, where you can use whatever cross-platform language you like (Python, Ruby, Java, C++, C#) and can tap into Qt library power will be a real win.
Economically, I think there's a lot of opportunity in this space too. As much as I think that the web is the *new* development platform of choice, there are limitations. And the web/browser will probably never have the same amount of power or control as something like Qt can provide even if Google develops offline stuff like gears, and amazing graphical toolkits/javascript wrappers like Google web toolkit
The real question is how this will all effect KDE. KDE might turn out to be a huge beneficiary, or maybe people will just run their Qt applications on Gnome, Windows, Mac, and their cell phones and not much will change.
>> A bird, a sheep and an australian sex-toy?
>Isn't the last item in your list just a synonym for sheep?
No, you'd be thinking of a *New Zealander* sex toy.
"In the modern era, Australia, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, and the British Isles are most closely associated with sheep production."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep
openSUSE 11.1 allows for a KDE 3.5 install I am running it on two boxes.
Additionally, many early state constitutions included similar clauses, but with less ambiguity.
Pennsylvania (where the constitution was written), for example:
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That's New Zealand. Australia has beer kegs.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Good thing I'm an atheist.
signature is pants
Are you saying that this Ubuntu can run on a computer without Linux underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?
That sounds preposterous to me.
If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers with a Ubuntu. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that Linux is more than just the kernel ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.
Linus just spent $9 billion and many years to create Linux, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Linux. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Linux.
Its just not possible that a freeware like the Ubuntu could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of Linux. Not possible.
I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.
(This is an adaptation of an original work of art which can be located at http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=43)
Wait a minute... Australians use beer kegs as sex toys?
That explains a lot about the taste of Aussie beer.
Taste? You drink it?
Man, these foriegners are crazy!
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
> If non-organic food is bad because pesticides are, surely farmers who handle lots of it ought to be dropping dead?
Not dropping dead, actually its worse than that. Using pesticides at work increases risk of Parkinson's three-fold :
Farmers suffer a living death
GNOME: beer & smokes
KDE: blackjack & hookers
Are the GNOME guys trying to hit The Ballmer Peak ?
Squirrel!
it would be really neat to see how much code is contributed from the different distros. It would be fairly non-surprising if it showed that gnome gets more code, but I would love to be proved wrong.
I think the rider of the male elephant suffers much less than the other rider in this case. At least physically.
coffee | nose > keyboard
For some reason I read Score 3: Furry for a moment there.
I am not devoid of humor.