Re: Current state of Foundation finances

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Matthew Garrett <mjg59 srcf ucam org> wrote:
...
> GNOME exists because people contribute to it. OPW has demonstrated a
> strong track record of creating long-term contributors. The mere
> existence of OPW has caused people who might otherwise not be
> enthusiastic about contributing to GNOME to contribute to GNOME, even
> without the board spending any money on them. Spending money on creating
> the impression that GNOME is a safe space is an excellent way to
> increase the pool of potential contributors, and this has succeeded far
> beyond spending the same amount of money on full-time developers.
>
> So, by every reasonable metric, OPW has proven to be directly beneficial
> to the goals of the project. I'm sure that the board is willing to
> consider alternatives, as long as those alternatives are equally
> compelling. So far, I haven't seen any.
...

It has been beneficial in other ways too. One of the defining features
of the GNOME project is that we work closely with other projects, and
we work to promote Free Software in general. OPW is strongly aligned
with that, and I think it helps us to communicate our core mission to
the wider world. OPW has prompted major organisations to notice the
positive impact that GNOME has on the wider ecosystem. In short: this
initiative has really helped us to tell a positive story about what
GNOME is about and why it matters.

I personally feel proud that GNOME is so closely associated with OPW,
and I think that many others in the project feel the same way.

Allan