Re-Decentralizing Development
As I’ve already announced internally, I’m stepping down from putting together an STF application for this year. For inquiries about the 2025 application, please contact Adrian Vovk going forward. This is independent of the 2024 STF project, which we’re still in the process of wrapping up. I’m sticking around for that until the end.
The topic of this blog post is not the only reason I’m stepping down but it is an important one, and I thought some of this is general enough to be worth discussing more widely.
In the context of the Foundation issues we’ve had throughout the STF project I’ve been thinking a lot about what structures are best suited for collectively funding and organizing development, especially in the context of a huge self-organized project like GNOME. There are a lot of aspects to this, e.g. I hadn’t quite realized just how important having a motivated, talented organizer like Sonny is to successfully delivering a complex project. But the specific area I want to talk about here is how power and responsibilities should be split up between different entities across the community.
This is my personal view, based on having worked on GNOME in a variety of structures over the years (volunteer, employee, freelancer, for- and non-profit, worked under grants, organized grants, etc.). I don’t have any easy answers, but I wanted to share how my perspective has shifted as a result of the events of the past year, which I hope will contribute to the wider ongoing discussion around this.
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