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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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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 Although some of these reports were outdated by the time the report was released, their overall impression is of a multi-tiered multi-national's executives reporting in.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
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Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
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."
A proof that we spend money on features and bug squashing, not on fancy web servers!
Ezekiel 23:20
KDE already spent donated money buying all buttons and check-boxes available on the market.
839*929
Last time I looked RHEL shipped with GNOME as the default. A quick search through redhat.com did nothing to disabuse me of that notion.
Considering most large enterprise distros (RHEL, SUSE, etc) ship with KDE as the main DE
Both SUSE's Enterprise offering (SLED) and RHEL default to GNOME. I don't know about etc.
No "large enterprise distro" currently ships with KDE as the main DE. SUSE is the only one that has decided to ship KDE by default, and that too very recently. Also, Linus's infamous statements are not a factor for people when deciding which DE to use. Seriously, they're not.
The reason why KDE is growing so much is because their community is insanely motivated. The only other community I've seen more motivated is the Drupal community. KDE is able to project a halo of (mostly valid) hype around itself which attracts users and hence contributors, which results in more features and hype, and so on.
OTOH, a lot of GNOME development is done by RedHat/Fedora dudes, and I constantly get the feeling that they are a closed book and don't pay attention to engaging the community and gaining contributors. There are exceptions of course, such as Richard Hughes and Dan Williams.
"..."
Summery? It's feeling more autumn-ish here in the US.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I think the server is feeling more Fall-ish...
"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
Condoms, hopefully...
If anyone is actually interested:
http://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-quarterly-2009Q1.pdf
http://foundation.gnome.org/reports/gnome-report-2009-Q2.pdf
To be fair, a lot of Ubuntu users haven't heard of Linux either.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
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.
I mean, when someone says "A..." whatever, what exactly are you supposed to infer from that?
That they are Canadian?