Hi,
There are a number of GNOME or GNOME-related project fundraisings:
For GIMP:
https://www.gimp.org/donating/
https://www.patreon.com/pippin
http://film.zemarmot.net/en/
PulseAudio: https://www.patreon.com/tanuk
GTK+, Corebird, ...: https://www.patreon.com/baedert
And now GtkSourceView: https://liberapay.com/GtkSourceView/
(Are there others?)
Those projects are useful to GNOME. But none of them have reached their
funding goals. GNOME has a nice website, it would be nice to highlight
the above fundraisings on the website, and/or writing a news article,
talking about them on social media, etc.
But… when someone donates to one of the above fundraisings, the GNOME
Foundation doesn't receive any money. So there would be in some way a
"competiton" with https://www.gnome.org/support-gnome/ . So maybe the
GNOME Foundation doesn't want to highlight other fundraisings on the
website. But this would come in conflict with the goal of the GNOME
Foundation which is to "further the goals of the GNOME Project".
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Sébastien
PS: I'm the author of the GtkSourceView fundraising.
Let me mention first that I'm merely a person with an opinion, with no role in the GNOME foundation, and my assumptions about how things work may well be wrong :-)
I definitely wish you and the other fundraisers much success! Don't get me wrong, I do support such things, and I have donated sometimes! But I think for GNOME to structurally highlight these would create inequality between GNOME projects (or even individual GNOME contributors, in the case of personal Patreons) where setting up a fundraiser is required to "compete" under the GNOME umbrella. Some inequality already exists because it's easier to get donations for a visible end product such as an app, rather than plumbing such as a platform library, or a thankless task such as keeping builds green on Continuous, and I wouldn't want GNOME to magnify that difference. (I do hope you prove me wrong with your fundraiser for GtkSourceView.)
I disagree with your statement that _not_ highlighting these fundraisers would come into conflict with the goal to "further the goals of the GNOME project." Furthering the goals of the GNOME project does not mean exhaustively taking every possible action that might help those goals by any amount, no matter how big or small.
In my opinion, GNOME should spend its resources strategically on what helps GNOME the most (and maybe that is a GNOME project's or individual's fundraiser in some cases), and for that reason I'd rather GNOME continue to promote donations for the foundation itself rather than for projects or individuals.
Regards,
Philip C
