Re: Mission Statement

[Jim Nelson <jim yorba org>]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 4:23 PM, Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com> wrote:

if that were the case, then we ought to stop handling funds for all the other projects for which we currently do handle funds: • Gimp • GStreamer • PulseAudio (for GSoC) • PiTiVi (fund raising)

... except that all four of those projects correspond almost exactly to the first sentence of the GNOME mission statement that Ryan quoted: "to create a computing platform for use by the general public that is completely free software."

I think OPW is a fantastic program and, from what I've seen, it's netted GNOME a good deal of positive publicity and goodwill, on top of the fact that it's addressing one of the more glaring problems in the software industry today. 

That said, studying the mission statement and considering Ryan's concerns, I think he's raising some valid questions.

Should the mission statement be revised?  If the educational part of the statement were broadened to include encourage internships and outreach into underrepresented groups, would that be enough?

Is it true that "the majority of participants are not GNOME contributors"?  This is news to me -- can someone (Ryan?) elaborate?

-- Jim