GNOME Took In $556k Last Year While Spending $675.9k

[aerospace]

Look at those conference expenses skyrocketing and the fundraising going down..what is the management thinking?

[slalomsk8er]

You speak redneck and I do redneck engineering ;-) I poured over 100 hours the last weeks into getting KDE working like that at all. One should think installing 200 packages and dependencies should give you a fulling working DE, ... https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2135242702

Don't worry, you're not alone, haven't even managed to build Plasma on Ubuntu 22.04 while following KDE's tutorials and so will probably never contribute any bug fixes.
I try about every couple of months, mostly because a new version got released. I confess, I don't have C++ knowledge besides what I read in a ancient book about game programming but I'm capable of installing Gentoo and Arch the manual way following the documentation so how hard could it be?

[anda_skoa]

I think I may be the fool here but am I reading that GIMP got ~180k income, but they only spent ~36k on it?

Sometimes funding is explicitly meant to be spent over a longer period.
Especially institutional funding is often structured like that.

Main objective is usually to have a continuous and sustainable stream of paid work rather than large bursts followed by a struggle to maintain the burst output.

[anda_skoa]

i wish i could spend $120,000 more than i make like gnome can

You can if you have built up reserves like the GNOME Foundation has done over many years.

[anda_skoa]

Stop doing those pointless conferences

The conferences are the opposite of pointless.

It is essential for such a widely distributed contributor base that usually only collaborates online to have in-person meetings.

Aside from efficient discussions and planning when a core group is together in the same room, there is the even more important aspect of getting to know each other on a personal level.

You get a much better understanding of how a person thinks, feels and behaves when you've sat next to them at lunch or dinner, etc.

Even companies which have employees across many countries do that, especially when their teams are not fully co-located in an office.

For a world wide community like GNOME this is even more essential.

[anda_skoa]

Not a gnome fan but the fact that the most used Linux desktop env get less funding than a single top manager or executive in big tech companies saddens me.

I agree that it would be great if there was more funding available, especially for end user software.

However we should not forget that additional to funding of organisations such as the GNOME Foundation, there is also funding via direct employment.

I.e. developers, artists, writers and other professionals being paid by various companies and institutions to work certain projects.

We usually don't get numbers for those investments as neither employee salaries nor employer expenses on top of that are usually public.

If we take the wider GNOME ecosystem then these direct investments might very well surpass the funding of the GNOME Foundation.

[You-]

Spending more than you have is certainly a problem, especially if you depend on donations and can't be sure to get enough next year.

It can be a problem, but in this instance it isnt.

Remember, this isnt a for profit company.

They have already stated the 2024 budget is expected to be a net balance.

But the idea of a foundation is they have enough resources that they can have increased expenses or decreased funding for a period of time and they will still continue to function.

I remember xorg foundation used to work explicitly like this - they would have a funding round and then spend years spending that money without any further active fundraising until they hit a certain limit and then have a new round. Their focus isnt to make money but to allow development of software.

Unlike what others have said on here, conferences seem to be a major impetus to development. THis is annecdotal, but if you follow the blogs and repositories, you often see huge spikes after (or even during) conferences and hackfests.

[anda_skoa]

I poured over 100 hours the last weeks into getting KDE working like that at all.

Oh, I also once had a slow Internet connection like that

Nowadays I can download and install KDE Neon in under one hour.

[rafanelli]

I find it odd that there's no mention (that I found) on how the budget gap is closed. This is the most important bit!

Where I live municipalities receive most of their funds from the state: they are dependent on the state.

If a museum cannot pay it's bill and receives a subsidy or grant: they are dependent on the subsidy or grant giver.

Say (I'm not sure about this) that RedHat/IBM foots GNOME's funding gap: GNOME is dependent on them.

If GNOME's income from fundraising (their larges income component) is for 80% or for 3% from RedHat/IBM, it makes a huge difference too.

I know GNOME depends on RedHat/IBM, I'm just curious to what extend this is the case.

[TheAria]

Before giving financial advice, people should realise that GNOME is a non-profit organisation. Being on the red is where they have to be tbh.