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The incredibly boring, totally reasonable finances of the GNOME Foundation
Frugal. Transparent. Focused on their core business.
December 28, 2022
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I recently reported on the incredibly bizarre finances of Mozilla (the makers of Firefox). Payments to nonexistent companies, major payments to political extremists (that have no relation to their core business), a total reliance on a single customer… and that’s just for starters. The finances of Mozilla are absolutely wild.

Which brings up a question:

How does that compare to the financial operations of other “non-profit” organizations in the Tech and Open Source world?

Are the finances of other organizations similarly corrupt and strange? Or is Mozilla… unique?

In order to (begin to) answer that question, I dove into the available financial data of the GNOME Foundation — the Non-Profit Foundation behind the GNOME Desktop Environment (among many other software projects).

What I found was shockingly boring. Full transparency. Reasonable salaries and expenditures. Not one drop of anything even remotely controversial, shady, or questionable.

In other words… the exact opposite of Mozilla.

Read on to be utterly bored by the reasonableness of The GNOME Foundation… IF YOU DARE.

What does The GNOME Foundation actually do?

GNOME is, without question, the most commonly used Desktop Environment on Linux operating systems in 2022. It provides the default experience for the majority of the most popular Linux variants in existence (including Ubuntu).

But what, exactly, does the GNOME Foundation do? What is the Foundation’s role in all of this?

In their own words…

The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organization that works to support the GNOME project.

 

Together we create a computing platform, composed entirely of free software, that is designed to be elegant, efficient, and easy to use. To achieve this goal, the Foundation coordinates releases and determines what software to include in these releases.

 

The Foundation provides the infrastructure necessary to building a technical project, including email services, hosting servers, and software for collaboration.

 

The Foundation acts as an official voice for the GNOME project, providing a means of communication with the community, media, and commercial and noncommercial organizations interested in GNOME software.

The Foundation produces educational materials and documentation to help the public learn about GNOME software.

 

In addition, it sponsors and helps organize GNOME related conferences, such as GUADEC, GNOME.Asia, and the Pan African GNOME Summit; represents GNOME at relevant conferences sponsored by others; helps create technical standards for the project; and promotes the use and development of GNOME software.

Infrastructure, release coordination, documentation and educational materials, conferences…

A good, clear list of services. All of which are clearly focused on the core business and market of GNOME.

How much money does the GNOME Foundation take in?

Now that we know what The GNOME Foundation sets out to accomplish… let’s take a look at how much money they take in with the purpose of accomplishing their goals.

Here are the breakdowns, for both 2020 and 2021, according to the GNOME Foundation annual report:

In 2020, The GNOME Foundation brought in a total of $925,189 dollars (USD). In 2021… that number dropped substantially. Down to $286,708.

One heck of a drop.

While that decrease in income is not a great thing… there’s nothing shady there. Simply a down year in terms of donations. As the Foundation stated in their report:

“The income for 2021 was a bit higher than projected. While down significantly from 2020, that was to be expected as 2021 did not have any high stakes events and the pandemic did not allow for many in-person events”

Here’s an important bit: All of these numbers are confirmed (at least for 2020) by the publicly available 990 forms from the IRS. (We don’t have the full 990 forms from the IRS for 2021 yet… thanks to the IRS being very, very slow.)

How much money do they spend?

Like with their income, The Gnome Foundation has provided clear breakdowns of their annual expenditures.

You’ll note that total expenses were actually higher in 2021. Which is concerning, considering the decreased income.

“While we spent less money in 2021 for conferences and other in-person events, we had directed funds that needed to be spent on specific programming items like the community challenge. Reduced staffing mid-year led to a slight decrease for staff spending for the year.”

For those of you doing the math at home, you’ll notice a little potential issue.

The GNOME Foundation brought in $286 Thousand in 2021… and they spent $926 Thousand. That means they spent $640 Thousand dollars more than they earned. Not great. How did they pull that off?

Digging into their 990 for 2019 and 2020 provided the answer: They had some money in the bank. You know. For a rainy day.

Specifically $1.8 Million in the bank. Which more than covered their losses in 2021.

While a loss year like that is not fun for any company or foundation… they happen. Just hopefully not too often.

Looking deeper into where the expenditures go reveals an organization that is quite frugal.

For example: The Executive Director of the Foundation earns a yearly salary of almost exactly $100,000 USD.

By comparison, the head of Mozilla earned $5.6 Million.

Note: You could make the argument that the head of Mozilla deserves to earn more because of the larger total market share of Firefox. Except… the difference between GNOME and Firefox, in terms of total users, is actually not all that dramatic. Firefox has a market share of around 3% (across all operating systems). Linux has almost the exact same market share (slightly less)… with GNOME being the dominant Desktop Environment. While it’s difficult to pin down, precisely, a good “from the hip” estimation would put the GNOME user-base at roughly half of Firefox’s. Give or take.

And, heck, a senior software developer or engineering management position in the United States is going to be able to earn far more than $100,000 yearly. $100k is nothing to sneeze at, to be sure, but is a potential drop in terms of what the same person could earn elsewhere.

Which means: The Executive Director of The GNOME Foundation is (most likely) sacrificing some of his earning potential in order to be able to work at GNOME.

At present, other than an Executive Director, there are 6 staff members of the Foundation. Which means the average salary of a Foundation employee is going to be less than $100k.

And, here’s something that struck me: No major discretionary spending. With GNOME, every dollar spent seems to be accounted for and earmarked for specific purposes — with clear relationships to the core business.

Reasonable salaries. No shady spending. All very carefully spelled out.

If anything, some of their staff probably could use a raise.

Seriously? There’s no shady stuff going on?

I warned you: Boring.

I can’t find a single objectionable thing in either their annual report or their filings with the IRS.

No bizarre business dealings whatsoever. Every dollar accounted for. All spending is very reasonable — and, importantly, all focused on their core mission and business.

I have a few take-aways from this:

  • This makes me more comfortable in donating to the GNOME Foundation… I know that my donated dollars will be used carefully.

  • It stands in stark contrast to the concerning, bizarre financials of Mozilla.

  • I now am curious: Is Mozilla the oddity for being so strange and shady? Or is GNOME the oddity for being so frugal, transparent, and focused on their core business? This may require some additional research to determine the answer to that question.

I’ll be honest. I’ve had a few criticisms of GNOME in the past — both in terms of the technical aspects of the Desktop Environment and related software… and of the running of the community and Foundation.

But, after doing some digging — and finding their operations and financials to be so utterly reasonable and boring — I am finding that I am having increasingly positive feelings towards them.

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The Unpublished Anti-Lunduke Hit-Piece
A Tech Journalist interviewed me for a hit-piece article. But the questions made them look bad, and they shelved the story. So I'm publishing their hit-piece for them.

Back in September, shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was contacted by a Tech Journalist writing for FossForce.com (a smaller, Open Source focused publication) who was working on an article around Open Source, Antifa, and the Lunduke Journal’s coverage of those topics.

This particular outlet had, several months prior, run an “anti-Lunduke” hit piece without first reaching out for comment — which resulted in their most popular article (at least on social media) in quite some time.

With that in mind, it seemed reasonable that they’d want to repeat that success with another “anti-Lunduke” story.

This time they were doing the responsible thing. They reached out to the subject of the hit-piece article with questions. I like encouraging Tech Journalists when they do actual journalism, so I answered each and every query with easy-to-quote responses.

But, it would appear that the answers they received were not conducive to creating the hit-piece they were hoping for — my guess is they realized their questions made them look like the villain in the story. The villain they, clearly, hoped to portray me as.

They opted to not publish the piece.

So I’m publishing their hit-piece for them.

Below is every question — and every answer (with no edits) — which I was asked, on September 19th, by a Tech Journalist by the name of Christine Hall, writing for FossForce.

Fair warning: This is very, very politically charged.

Enjoy.


September 19th

Hall:

The last time I mentioned you in an article, you castigated me for not reaching out to you beforehand. Well, I’m reaching out now. We’ll see what comes of this.

You do recognize that the vast majority of organizations using the term antifa as a descriptor are not in the least bit terrorist and pose no threat to society -- and indeed, the only threats they might pose to fascist groups are not physical or life-harming?

Lunduke:

Hello Christine! Nice to hear from you!

Many, if not most, of those proclaiming support for Antifa (within Open Source) have also made statements encouraging or supporting violence and discrimination.

Regardless of that fact -- which I have documented extensively in Lunduke Journal coverage -- when violent acts are committed (such as murder, riots, and lynchings) in the name of “Antifa”, to turn around and immediately declare yourself to be “Antifa” is a clear declaration of support of that violence.

Hall:

And why did you feel it necessary to call out Danielle Foré’s [the founder of the elementary OS Linux Distribution] trans status in such an ugly manner?

Lunduke:

There is a noteworthy overlap between “Trans activism” and support for political violence -- including in the recent murder of Charlie Kirk (the murderer’s boyfriend was “Trans”).

In the case of Daniel Fore, he, a leader of an Open Source project, regularly calls for discrimination (and violence) against people he disagrees with -- often in conjunction with his self-declaration as “Trans”.

Thus, his declaration of being “Trans” becomes a part of the overall story.

It is worth noting here that The Lunduke Journal has never -- and would never -- call for discrimination or violence against someone because of how they identify or who they may (or may not) vote for.

This is in stark contrast those, such as Mr. Fore, who consider themselves “Trans” or “Antifa” -- who actively advocate for both discrimination and violence.

Hall:

Mentioning a person’s trans status in ways that are pertinent to your argument necessates rudeness such as calling her a “dude who likes to wear dresses”?

Lunduke:

Dan Fore is, in fact, a dude who likes to wear dresses.

The only reason to view that as a negative is if you view dudes wearing dresses as a negative.

Hall:

I’ll quote you on that, which I’m pretty sure won’t bother you in the least.

Lunduke:

Absolutely! Quote anything I say here. In fact, I suggest quoting absolutely everything I’ve written to you here, today.

Hall:

You also understand, don’t you, that voicing disagreement with an assessment made by POTUS is not only legal but a healthy part of the national dialog.

Lunduke:

Absolutely! Did I say somewhere that it was illegal to disagree with a politician? It seems unlikely that I have ever said that.

Hall:

Also, how would you reply to this:

There have been very few murders linked to individuals associated with Antifa, some incidents of rioting attributed to Antifa supporters, and no credible evidence of lynchings conducted in the name of Antifa. Compared to far-right groups, violence attributed to Antifa is much less frequent and lethal, with only one suspected kill—Aaron Danielson in Portland, by an anti-fascist activist—officially confirmed in recent U.S. history.

Lunduke:

Murder is bad. I am opposed to all murder.

In the context of these discussions, bearing in mind the Kirk murder is important (as many statements were made in response to it). The murderer of Kirk appears to have been pro-Trans and pro-Antifa (based on all available information).

Hall:

Is there any evidence that the suspect was part of an antifa group? I haven’t seen any.

Lunduke:

I have seen some reporting to this effect (including statements from family and messages he wrote).

But, far more important to this story, is the response to the murder among Antifa supporters (including those within Open Source). A large portion of Antifa supporters have celebrated the murder as justified because it killed someone they considered to be a “fascist”.

Hall:

Also, no group should be held responsible for what some deranged person who identifies with the group has done.

Lunduke:

I agree that a broader group should not be held responsible for the actions of a small number of individuals.

However, and this is critically important, it is entirely appropriate to hold people responsible for their own statements and actions.

With that in mind: The overall messaging of Antifa (and Antifa supporters) tends heavily towards violence. Punching, killing, molotov cocktails, etc. are all common messaging used by Antifa (including by those I quote within the Open Source world -- many of whom have advocated violence against myself).

Advocating for violence, then celebrating when violence is committed, are not good things.

Yet we see a great deal of that among Open Source supporters of Antifa.

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Sale ends in a few hours, Lifetime Subs set up.

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To everyone who grabbed a Lifetime Subscription over the last few days: All of you are set to full Lifetime access. You should have a confirmation email in your inbox. If not, email me and I’ll make sure you’re setup properly.

That “50% off” sale ends tonight at midnight. So you have a few hours to snag a discounted subscription, if you haven’t already.

A huge thank you to everyone who supports this work. Couldn’t do it without you.

-Lunduke

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50% Off Lunduke Journal Extended Through Monday (Oct 13th)

Just a quick heads up:

The “50% off every kind of Subscription to The Lunduke Journal” sale has been extended through Monday (October 13th).

So. You know. Grab one at 50% off between now and end of the day on Monday.

To all of you amazing nerds who have picked up a Lifetime Subscription already this weekend: You are awesome. You’ll be receiving a confirmation email, with all of the Lifetime Subscription details, by tomorrow (if you haven’t already).

Oh, and remember how we hit 11 Million views last month? Yeah. We’re well on our way to blowing past those numbers in October.

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See you all on Monday!

-Lunduke

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