As of today, the GNOME Foundation has lost yet another Executive Director — Steven Deobald, who lasted a short 4 months.
The previous executive director, Holly Million, lasted a grand total of 9 months in the role.
To say things have been chaotic within the GNOME Foundation, would be a wild understatement — with last year seeing GNOME elections overturned in secret meetings and massive cashflow issues.
The last 4 months, since the new Executive Director took the position, hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. Here’s a quick timeline of just some of the strange activity since then.
May 7: The GNOME Foundation hired Steven Deobald to be their new Executive Director.
May: GNOME engages in bizarre, vulgar attacks on The Lunduke Journal.
May 25: GNOME starts “Pride Month” early.
June 24: GNOME Foundation published an FAQ attacking visually impaired users as "concern trolls", declaring "Free Palestine", and informing users that “Wayland is Gay”.
June 24: GNOME Foundation goes on unhinged rant, declaring Lunduke a "fascist maggot" and "apartheid, ethnosupremacist, babykiller apologist clown", XLibre Dev an "actual Nazi, transphobe, 911 truther nut job".
July: GNOME Foundation ran cover for a registered sex offender contributor.
August 5: The GNOME Foundation pledged fealty to the United Nations.
And now today, August 29th, their new Executive Director is out. After only 4 months on the job. Did any of those events contribute to the departure? GNOME isn’t saying.
In fact, the statement from Allan Day, the new Acting GNOME Executive Director, is incredibly vague regarding the reason for the change.
“Steven Deobald has been in the post of GNOME Foundation Executive Director for the past four months, during which time he has made major contributions to both the Foundation and the wider GNOME project. Sadly, Steven will be leaving the Foundation this week. The Foundation Board is extremely grateful to Steven and wish him the very best for his future endeavors.”
According to the outgoing Executive Directors own statement — entitled “So short, and thanks for all the flinch”:
“As the board announced earlier today, I will be stepping down from the Executive Director role this week. It’s been an interesting four months.”
That reads to me like a firing (or a forced layoff due to lack of funds). But, unless someone speaks up, it’s unlikely we’ll know for sure.
The following was posted by Deobald (outgoing Executive) and Allan Day (new acting Executive) on the GNOME Foundation’s Matrix chat channel.
The statement, “I feel like I’ve been glued to an Emacs buffer for 3 straight days” suggests 3 days of discussions (or waiting) leading up to this change.
What will happen next for the GNOME Foundation?
With multiple years of absolute chaos — including financial troubles and an inability to have leadership last more than a few months (not to mention an obsession with attacking The Lunduke Journal) — it’s hard to imagine the next few months being anything other than a continuation of the insanity at GNOME.
