GNOME Foundation Announces Cost Cutting Measures Due To Budget Woes

[hf_139]

Will Gnome take Lundukes offer and make him CEO for a year?

[Errinwright]

Will Gnome take Lundukes offer and make him CEO for a year?

No, they'll rehire the shaman that spent 6 months getting paid to make a DEI powerpoint

[billyswong]

It's more than just transgender. It's "Activate more diverse, under-served, female, transgender, and younger users and creators worldwide". It's about getting more people from more backgrounds to use GNOME software. Look at it this way, if GNOME was a room with 100 people you'd look around and see 85 white guys from Europe and North America. The 15 people left are women, transgender, youths, and men who aren't from NA/EU. That's not a whole lot of diversity so the people in GNOME look around the room and they think to themselves, "We have worse diversity and demographics than the MAGA movement". It also means that they live in an echo chamber. There's nobody different enough to speak out about different ideas. The few that are different aren't willing to go against the echo due to potential harassment by existing GNOME fellows like Emmanuele Bassi.

Once you see GNOME from that perspective, DEI can be a great thing for them to have. More people from more places and backgrounds can mean a less homogeneous environment and less of an echo chamber.

The ironic thing about all of this is that, globally, white people are the actual minority so the 85 white people in GNOME are technically already DEI hires and they'll be replaced by the majority. DEI can be rather funny when you look at it globally instead of locally.

People dislike DEI because having a need for DEI highlights just how racist and bigoted our societies still are. A lot of people against DEI are against it because they're not racist and they assume more people think like they do. They have no idea what Mr. Mouse was going on about. Perspective bias.

It is alright if you put "under-represented" people into tester role or for providing feedback to draft design. Risky for "balancing" the employment composition.

Another problem of DEI is, the current DEI trend in the West is treating East-Asian preference and culture harsher and more oppress and disrespect than before this DEI thing. See some of the critics to the latest AC Shadow game.

https://japan-forward.com/new-ubisoft-game-assassins-creed-shadows-why-the-criticism/

https://thatparkplace.com/ubisoft-trashed-after-assassins-creed-shadows-debuts-new-qlectors-collectible-featuring-yasuke-and-naoe-alongside-what-appears-to-be-a-destroyed-torii-gate/

The DEI motto sounds good on the surface, but to us East Asians, those people are doing anything but that.

[Pirunvirsi]

The drama completely created by Godot? Lmao.

1) Make politically divisive statement fully knowing it's divisive.
2) Block anyone who calls you out including people that fund the project at platinum tier on all platforms.
3) Call them horrible evil racists for simply telling you to keep politics out of the project.
4) They pull the funding, fork the project, and keep developing it without you.
5) Harass the new project that just wants to be politics and virtue signaling free.
6) Profit????

None of those things have actually happened, by the way.

1) Godot made a Twitter post which mocked the sentiment that „using a game engine to make games is woke, because only people who can’t code by themselves use game engines“, and invited LGBTQ+ developers to share their games under the post. Nearly all of the fallout comes from alt-right Twitter chuds and concern trolls who are offended by the mere idea of a free and open-source project willingly giving LGBTQ+ creators a spotlight for their games. The anti-woke crowd sparks a manufactured controversy, they resort to harassment and outright making shit up on the spot to delegitimise the Godot project.

2) The vast majority of people rightfully blocked on GitHub and Twitter were those who harassed the team members on those platforms. Some other people were blocked in the crossfire and Godot made amends by letting them submit an unblock request form, so if anyone was blocked by mistake, they can contact them and work it out.

3) There is no factual evidence to support that statement.

Regarding those „horrible evil racists“, the Godot project is not obliged to listen to them in any way, regardless of their status or level of financial contribution, because the relationship between them is not that of a company/customer where they have customers they want to keep paying, but that of a FOSS project/user. So blocking the troublemakers is absolutely in order. The Godot Foundation has also submitted a statement condemning the hate. No one was fired and their original post was not removed, because there was no actual reason to.

4) No actual funding was pulled. A corporate sponsorship has expired a few weeks ago for unrelated reasons, while the number of monthly backers has actually increased since the manufactured controversy. As of today, the main fork „Redot“ has made no unique changes to the engine and continues to pull changes from Godot. It also faces scrutiny due to a lack of plan or support, and most of the Redot team's solutions to their own problems they have caused are „literally just install Godot“. The majority of the established contributors and developers will not contribute to a contrarian fork with none of the renown, support and funding Godot has, because sending their changes to the main project is just easier and is sure to reach more users.

5) There is no factual evidence to support that statement.

6) Profit confirmed.

TL;DR: The Godot project pisses off alt-right Twitter chuds by taking a piss at their sentiment, then debunks the „go woke, go broke“ myth by gaining more financial contributors while the internet laughs at the manufactured drama purely because of the fact that no one gives a shit about „cunnygroyper1488“'s opinions on multi-purpose game engine development.

[mos87]

This is like a perverse Tourette's, except that people with real Tourette's have their vocabulary degenerated to a single word "fuck"

Learned something new today. Also I already like the "tourettes" more than.. the other lot.

[mos87]

None of those things have actually happened, by the way.

1) Godot made a Twitter post which mocked the sentiment that „using a game engine to make games is woke, because only people who can’t code by themselves use game engines“. Nearly all of the fallout comes from alt-right Twitter chuds and concern trolls who are offended by the mere idea of a free and open-source project willingly giving LGBTQ+ creators a spotlight for their games. The anti-woke crowd sparks a manufactured controversy and resorts to harassment and making shit up on the spot to delegitimise the Godot project.

2) The vast majority of people rightfully blocked on GitHub and Twitter were those who harassed the team members on those platforms. Some other people were blocked in the crossfire and Godot made amends by letting them submit an unblock request form, so if anyone was blocked by mistake, they can contact them and work it out.

3) There is no factual evidence to support that statement.

Regarding those „horrible evil racists“, the Godot project is not obliged to listen them to any way, regardless of their status or level of financial contribution, because the relationship between them is not that of a company/customer where they have customers they want to keep paying, but that of a FOSS project/user. So blocking the troublemakers is absolutely in order.

4) No actual funding was pulled. A corporate sponsorship has expired a few weeks ago for unrelated reasons, while the number of monthly backers has actually increased since the manufactured controversy. The main fork Redot still pulls changes from Godot and most of the Redot team's solutions to their own problems they have caused are „literally just install Godot“. The majority of the established contributors and developers will not contribute to a contrarian fork with none of the renown, support and funding Godot has, because sending their changes to the main project is just easier and is sure to reach more users.

5) There is no factual evidence to support that statement.

6) Profit confirmed.

TL;DR: The Godot project pisses off alt-right Twitter chuds by taking a piss at their sentiment, then debunks the „go woke, go broke“ myth by gaining more financial contributors while the internet laughs at the manufactured drama purely because of the fact that no one gives a shit about „cunnygroyper14-88“'s opinions on multi-purpose game engine development.

lol
a typical example of a nice inclusive tolerant chap online.

GoDOt eNGIne PISsESS someone off on twitter! Cool. Stunning and brave.

[Pirunvirsi]

lol
a typical example of a nice inclusive tolerant chap online.

GoDOt eNGIne PISsESS someone off on twitter! Cool. Stunning and brave.

And it’s absolutely based.

[DumbFsck]

Here's a good faith effort to steelman the DEI position in response to your questions.

Lets unspin here a little.
1) Trying why? Who decided it should be tried?

I believe for those practicing DEI the number one justification would be ethics. If your moral system values equity and inclusion as "good", that in and on itself is "why" enough.

In terms of morals the DEI supporter then has to think if the current distribution of representation is "fair" or if it comes from "unfair" bias and structural hurdles that make it difficult for the less included to manifest and express their skills.

Following the morals and fairness argument, comes the business proposition. Inclusive and diverse companies (and orgs) innovate more, reach more markets and make larger profits. I'll share more in response to your last question, where this fits better - including my sources.

There are other reasons (like even public perception can be a reason in itself) but I believe these two are the most important.

2) Reach out - what does it mean? In old white gammon terms please.

"Reach out" means making an effort to engage with. In practical terms it can mean targeted recruitment (note that ideally this means having more people applying for posItions, not necessarily being hired, the two things are different), it can mean participation (literally directly engaging) with the targeted/underrepresented communities to better understand why they are underrepresented (for example, ask a bunch of people if they are disinterested or if they feel unwelcome in the project, if so then why and what could be done to make it better), could mean creating mentorship and support programs (like for example when I was in mandatory military service, they had me and a bunch of other men in a group specifically to be mentored in how to sew, as we lacked that from home, i.e. we weren't taught by our parents, but is an essential skill of self sufficiency).

3) under represented groups - there's a whole bunch of uncertainty with this one.
Who and HOW measures the degree of representation?
Among what/who too?
Who decides what groups go where on the chart and which one deserves any action (Who pays/backs the action again? Who ceded the right to decide?) and which doesn't?
Also in real-life practical terms please.

Typically, the "how" is by comparing numbers and then with the numbers in hand is to seek the reason for disparate numbers. So for example, and being it an example don't gold me to specific numbers, if men are 50% of the population but only 10% of nurses, you could investigate then "why" are men not trying to become nurses, and if the justification is something that can/should/could be targeted by DEI, you can "reach out" to the group and make the environment more receptive to these people.

Usually, it is more focused on largely or previously discriminated against groups (like here in Switzerland you could look for the numbers of women involved in politics, as until like the seventies they were directly discriminated against, not being allowed to vote). Groups that were badly discriminated against in the past usually have to deal with more "artificial" hurdles than those who weren't.

"Among what/who" is exactly to the point in discretion to the org seeking to have DEI policies or not, I doubt the GNOME foundation cares if there is lack of inclusion and diversity in the housing market of Vancouver, they probably care more about participation in open source movement, programming and design.

To "decide what group goes where in the chart" as I said previously, it can be as simple as looking in general demographics, like the number of male nurses I came up with as an example. But it can also be from tips and requests for evaluation; you could for example not have data (so the chart doesn't even exist yet) but you notice the pattern of many men coming to you and saying they feel unwelcome in a toxic work environment in your nurse department, then you go after the numbers, then the reasons and then, if applicable, remediation. So even "asking" could be a reason to put a group in some designation (this group needs action to be more well represented), add to that all of the historical context and you have three good enough answers.

So historical context (like my example of women in politics), hard data that came from larger observations (from as simple as percentage of population, like my superficial nurse example, to as complex as a quant or actuarian wanta to make it), participation in diverse communities (being there to listen, what I called "literally asking".

Btw, a DEI advocate would have an issue with your usage of the word " deserving" of action, they would much prefer to act on "need", as in; this group needs DEI policy to be as well represented as they should (should being from recognizing hurdles due to history or w/e, due to number discrepancy, etc).

" Who backs/pays for it" can be as simple as "this organization came to us to give money rhat we have to use exclusively in our 'outreachy' program" (as seems to be the case), or it can be general funds (as long as the org is respecting of their charter, for example if they have to being it to a vote, voting members decide, if the org charter was to say that one dollar is one vote, then the financiers are the ones deciding, etc), also there are government incentives in some places of the world that can be partially responsible for funding.

Lastly, as I said, having a diverse workforce seems to increase profits long term and add new markets, so one could argue that it is backed by the future (spend now, get more money later, in practice you'd be losing money if you didn't spend).

"Who ceded the right to decide" can be the board of a company, stock holders, management, etc., for an org like GNOME or will be in the charter, if it's by vote, dirextor election, members, donors, etc. I'll leave it to you to check the specifics.

Just curious, what sort of a return and more importantly in who's interests such investment is supposed to bring?

Thank you in advance.

Who's interests is easy, anyone who complains (so in the previous response, those who "ask" for DEI), those who want a better product (to be elaborated further down), those who jave morals/ethics that identify "inclusion" as fair, etc. Now that you read almost all of my post, you can draw up a lot of answers to this question.

Now for what sort of return, there's the noral returns (for those who care), there is social return (maybe only tangential to GNOME, but if I'm a business person, inclusion can mean more clients, which in turn means more financial returns quite directly), and finally, economical returns (as in, money, or a better product).

There is evidence (almost overwhelming evidence) that diverse companies make more money, make better decisions all while having happier workers.

In 2013 there was a Harvard article showing more diverse companies were 45% more likely to increase market share and 70% more likely to capture new markets. (I've read elsewhere that this number is becoming smaller, different people attribute different causes for the shrinking of this advantage - note that while less advantageous, it is still the general consensus that it IS advantageous)

A Boston Consulting Group (BCG) research showed an increase of 19% of revenue from innovation. The Carlyle Group found it increased earnings by 12%.

McKinsey & Co published a report that companies with gender diversity are 25% more likely to have above average profits than less diverse firms, while ethnic and culturally diverse companies were 36% more likely to be above average in EBIT margins.

A Cloverpop study showed that while a team of men outperforms individuals (any sex) in decision making by 55%, a diverse team (or mixed) outperformed individuals by 75% - making the right decision 86% of the time.

Deloitte showed research that teams that include neurodivergent people (who can also be targeted by DEI policy) are on average 30% more productive than those without.

On worker satisfaction the data was published by Glassdoor.


So "what kind of return" I guess it is answered.

Thank you for taking the time and for letting the facts better inform you so you can form your opinion from aplace of knowledge and not ignorance.

And of course,

You're welcome.

Postscript: I can of course cite many more studies and research. So if you want, just ask. But I think what I've already talked about is enough, right?

And as made clear by my wording, I'm not necessarily a DEI policy defender, I'm just a bit more informed than average who gave you a steelman defense, like devils advocate style. What I do with this info and what you'll personally do with it, that is up to each individual.

[Citan]

Bad news for the outward-facing, under-served, female, transgender and diverse audience that GNOME targeted in their 5 year plan that was released 1.5 years ago.

Problably one of the reasons why it went south.
Software development about *desktop interface* should have NO regard whatsoever for personal opinions and sexual attractions.

If really someone needed to include a person because of a personal characteristic, it should be people with physical or mental handicaps to have someone directly voice in concerns and suggestions for built-in accessibility.

Everything else is completely irrelevant pertaining the recruitment of people, except their actual skillness and theorical/ground experience relating the jobs/missions they are considered for.

[kpedersen]

Software development about *desktop interface* should have NO regard whatsoever for personal opinions and sexual attractions.

Yes. But if you intend to milk a community for as much donation money as possible, the winning move currently is to clearly state a focus on those minority groups in an attempt to simulate an extremely inclusive, warm and fuzzy environment for people to feel good about themselves in.

Classic charity industry stuff. Almost orthogonal to the business-2-business industry where simulating a sole focus on efficiency is currently the best way to extract money from potential sources.