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The GNOME 5 Year plan: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Nonexistent PowerPoint Slides
This is what the GNOME Foundation has been working on, in secret, for the last 6 months?
May 30, 2024
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The GNOME Foundation -- the organization behind the Desktop Environment used by nearly every Enterprise Linux company -- has had a pretty wild ride as of late.

First they hired a new Executive Director, who was previously a "Professional Shaman" (a fact they immediately worked to hide... which was... you know... weird).  Then it becomes clear that they were in incredibly dire financial straits and needed to implement an emergency spending freeze.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it, the GNOME Foundation is having a rough go of it.

But, fear not!  For the GNOME Foundation's Board of Directors has announced a draft of a glorioius "Five Year Strategic Plan", painstakingly designed to solve their financial woes and get GNOME back on the right track.

From their announcement:

"This draft was created over a six-month period through a process that involved research, individual interviews, and group discussions with staff, board, and members. This draft has been reviewed by the Board and is now ready to share with the greater community."

That's right.  This plan took six months to create.  Six.  Months.  Making it, assuredly, the most well researched, detailed, comprehensive plan in the history of Open Source Software!

Prepare to be Disappointed

I'll jump right to the point:  This plan is neither detailed nor comprehensive.  It is not a "took 6 months" plan... heck... it's not even a "took 6 hours" plan.  It is, in fact, vague, poorly thought out, filled with DEI buzz words, and heavily reliant on wishy thinking.

The best thing I can say about this plan is that it is, thankfully, extremely short.

The GNOME Five Year Strategic Plan consists of just over 1,000 words and is broken up into three "Strategic Goals" sections:

  1. People
  2. Initiatives
  3. Capacity & Infrastructure

Let's go through the primary points of each section, shall we?  I mean... it's short!  So it won't take long!

(Note: The summarized points below are only slightly summarized, mostly to remove flowery, vague language... the entire, complete Five Year Strategic Plan contains very few additional details whatsoever.)

Goal One: People

Here we go.  One bullet point at a time.  With commentary and analysis on each.

  • Take the voting board from seven to eleven members.

Ok.  There are 7 board members.  They want to add 4 more.  Now there will be 11.  How will that help GNOME?  Who knows.  But it's worth noting.  Because it's one of the few times, in this whole plan, where actual numbers are mentioned.

  • Create a more inclusive leadership model prioritizing advancing women, people of color, people from under-represented regions, and people with disabilities to positions of leadership.

Ah.  Here we go.  Right out of the gate.  "Prioritizing" specific groups over others.  Also known as discrimination.

How, exactly, does discriminating against some groups -- while falsely claiming "inclusivity" -- bring in additional funds (which GNOME desperately needs to stay operational)?  Beats me!

  • Communicate the social-benefit of GNOME by describing how GNOME directly empowers people, including under-served people.

Who, exactly, are these "under-served people"?  Under-served... of what?  Spaghetti?  Have they been served too small a portion of spaghetti?

That's a joke.  We know it's not referring to spaghetti.  Or do we?  This plan doesn't say what they're talking about at all.  It might as well be all about spaghetti!

And what would the "social-benefit" be?  You know... exactly.  This plan doesn't say.  Because that would be specific.  And this plan is anything but specific.  Or useful.

  • Activate more diverse, under-served, female, transgender, and younger users and creators.

"Hey, how can we bring in a ton more money -- to bring our software development foundation back from the brink of bankruptcy?"

"Hmm.  I dunno!  Maybe say something about diversity?  Oh!  Throw in the word 'transgender'!  That oughta do it!"

  • Create GNOME Pathways Initiative (“Pathways”), an education program that recruits, mentors, educates, involves, and elevates as leaders new creators from Africa, Latin America, Asia.

Ok, here's an idea that actually has a little merit.  Recruit people, in various locales, to work on GNOME related projects.  Great.  Do that.  Why does this need to, specifically, be focused on "Africa, Latin America, and Asia"?  That's not made clear in the plan.  Maybe somebody really wants to take a trip to those areas?

It's also not clear how this would be done.  Or what sort of specific, measurable goals this would have.  Vague as vague can be.

But at least it's the beginning of a real idea.

  • Launch a badging program — “powered by GNOME”

Right about now, you might be thinking, "Wait... they've worked on this for half a year... and they only have vague concept of creating a 'badging program' but haven't come up with anything else about it?"

Yup.

  • Strategic partnerships with governments, universities, and nonprofit partners to reach new, under-served and diverse audiences.

Diverse!  Under-served!  Vague!  Huzzah!

Goal Two: Initiatives

  • Document all successes and impacts and incorporate all the new narrative into a refreshed GNOME Foundation website.

Ok.  This actually seems reasonable.  (Despite the structure of that sentence making my eyes bleed.)

Tell people all of the cool things GNOME has accomplished.  Makes sense!  That's the start of a marketing idea, right there!

... and it took the GNOME Foundation (and their new Executive Director) 6 months to simply come up with that idea.  Shoot.  Completing that entire task shouldn't take more than a small fraction of those "6 months".

What, exactly, has the GNOME Executive Director been doing for the last half year?  

  • Integrate fiscal sponsorship for Flathub apps and GNOME Circle apps

Integrate... fiscal sponsorship... for Flathub apps.

Huh.  Ok.  So... finding companies, or organizations, to become sponsors (read: advertisers) within software distributed via Flathub?  Well.  That's one possible way to raise funds.

Putting ads and sponsorships into software, though.  That sounds very... Microsoft-y.

  • Identify current critical security weaknesses in GNOME and fix them.

Wait.  GNOME wasn't fixing security weaknesses already?

That... that can't be the case.  Right?

  • Create more documentation and tooling for GNOME as a whole; having these things will also fuel increased accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion for creators and users.

Diversity!  Equity!  Inclusion!

That'll definitely, magically, earn GNOME more money!

Wait.  Documentation = increased Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion?

But.  How?  What?  Trying to make sense of that is making my nose bleed.

  • Create a more strategic, more inclusive, less expensive, more worldwide, and greener annual event for GNOME.

Remember when you were having a conversation with that software developer friend of yours, and he said, "Gee.  I'd absolutely go to a GNOME conference... but they just aren't green or inclusive enough."?

But, hey, less expensive events!  That seems like a good thing!

  • Identify and market to new, outward-facing, under-served, and diverse audiences.

Oh, my gosh.  Seriously?  Again with the "under-served" and "diverse" mishegaas?

What in the heck does that mean, anyway?  So if a new, potential GNOME user (or developer) isn't in whatever "diverse" group the GNOME Foundation randomly defines in the moment (because it's not called out in the "plan")... GNOME doesn't want them around?

What a weird -- and stupid -- thing to include in a plan.

Goal Three: Capacity & Infrastructure

  • Document and claim in writing through a case for support and slide deck what we have already accomplished.

Read that sentence again.  Say it out loud.  Slowly.

Then remember that this sentence took 6 months to write.  And was reviewed by the GNOME Board before being published.

Also... they didn't take 6 months to make a slide deck.  They took 6 months to say "hey, we should make a slide deck some day".

  • Quantify our impact in numbers through charts and graphs

"Hey, you know what successful Foundations have?  Charts and graphs!  Based on numbers!  Let's come up with some of those!"

6 months to think of that... but not actually make any charts.  Or graphs.

  • Seek funding for GNOME Development

SixMonths.  Just to think of the 5 words that sum up the entire, obvious reason why their foundation existed in the first place. 

Seek funding for GNOME Development.

This is something that their Executive Director (and Board) should be doing.  Every day.  Constantly.

They just took half a year... to think about maybe doing it.

  • Two or three crowdfunding campaigns each year for hard-to-fund meta activities to raise between $50K and $200K per initiative.

Great!  How many crowdfunding campaigns has GNOME run in the last half year?  Oh.  Zero?  But they want to have two or three per year?  Better get busy.

Because, you know, GNOME is running out of money.  Chop chop!

  • Fundraise around becoming a Flathub sponsor; collect demographics for contributors in Github.

Wait.  Collect demographics for contributors in GitHub?  What in the heck does that mean, exactly?  And how are those collected personal demographic details monetized?

This feels like something that's going to get GNOME yelled at.

  • Develop direct funding relationships with at least twenty new foundations, at least 20 new corporate partners, and at least ten government agencies in 2024.

Ok.  Great.  Finally!  A goal with an actual, measurable set of numbers on it!

How much of this has been accomplished in the last half year?  Was it just thought about... or was it acted upon?

Will details on this be published so GNOME members and contributors can see how the Executive Director and Board are performing against these goals?

  • Increase staff capacity by hiring (multiple new positions).

So... spend more money.  Money GNOME does not have. 

But will definitely have soon.  Wink wink.  Because of this totally sweet "Five Year Strategic Plan".  Also... diversity.

That's it.  Really.

And that brings us to the end of a complete analysis of nearly every point of this... ahem... plan.

A plan with an almost startling lack of details.

A plan primarily focused on repeating words like "diverse", "under-served", and "inclusive"... with very little focus on an actual strategy for keeping the GNOME Foundation afloat.

A plan that could have been written in a short afternoon.  During commercial breaks while watching reruns of Scooby Doo.

In fact... this article contains more words than the entire "GNOME Five Year Strategic Plan".  Seriously.

And, yes.  I wrote this during commercial breaks... while watching reruns of Scooby Doo.

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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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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).

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See you all on Monday!

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