Hi Fredrik,

To repeat: People keep saying this and it's blatantly wrong. The GNOME Foundation is run by a board of directors which is elected by the members of the GNOME community. Elections just ended and we had our first board meeting yesterday. The corporations who are supporting GNOME are on an Advisory Board which has no decision-making authority whatsoever. So the GNOME Foundation is NOT run by the companies on the Advisory Board. Thus, as far as I can tell, the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board and the KDE League are almost identical in function. More info about the GNOME Foundation is at http://foundation.gnome.org. Let me know if I can further clarify this.

I think I speak on behalf of the GNOME Foundation's Board of Director in congratulating the KDE community on the launch of the KDE League. I think it's a positive development that both projects are establishing venues for dialogue with the companies whose support will be integral in bringing a free desktop to the mainstream.

Also, I for one am excited to see that a number of companies participate in both the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board and on the KDE League. I hope these cross-memberships will encourage greater collaboration between the two projects.

OK, I've read this over so now I'm better educated :). You're right in terms of the similarity, they both say they will act as PR and media contacts, however that is where the League stops. The Foundation, according to the web site "the Foundation will coordinate releases of GNOME and determine which projects are part of GNOME."

That is the critical distinction that I think I, and others are making, it doesn't have to do with the corporate sponsorship. That said, hopefully this can also act as a unified conduit for communcation between the two groups to work together.

• Re: Remember this by bart decrem on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @11:58

  Hi Shawn, Yes, the GNOME Foundation does release coordination and other functions that, I understand, are handled by KDE Core in the KDE project. But those functions are handled by the Board of Directors, which was elected by the hackers. The Advisory Board is just like the KDE League (as far as I know).

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• Re: Remember this by Aaron J. Seigo on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @12:06

  yes, that's right. i nice democratically voted in Board of Directors that has nothing to do with the companies that are part of the foundation. NOT. 4 from Eazel, 2 from Helix, 2 from Red-Hat and one from Sun. leaving 2 that aren't from companies in the foundation and 0 unaligned members. Get real and see through the smoke.

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• Re: Remember this by Anonymous on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @14:47

  Oups, how many members of the KDE Core Team aren't employed by companies in the league ?

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• Re: Remember this by CP on Friday 17/Nov/2000, @05:08

  That's another question; at KDE even "employed" programmers have to discuss their ideas with everybody (including interested hackers that do not really participate in the project), while in the GNOME foundation, the Directors can make the decicions as it pleases them (or their employers?). If it happens that nearly every Director has a job at a member-concern, they can (and as nobody can stop them, I'm sure they will) act not only like individual GNOME programmers, but also the way it fits the needs of the companies.

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• Re: Remember this by Anonymous on Thursday 16/Nov/2000, @04:53

  In case you don't know, those are individual persons too. They are humans and enjoy programming.

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• Re: Remember this by ac on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @12:08

  Looking at who was elected, there is indeed a lot of corporate involvement in who now steers GNOME! This is very different from before!

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• Re: Remember this by ac on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @12:21

  Well, the core developers of both KDE and Gnome tend to be hired by corporations, so it's really pretty inevitable.

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• Re: Remember this by Yakk on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @16:57

  rofl You are indeed a funny man. The Board of directors is pretty much exactly who was steering GNOME before. We have ratified this through a democratic process. I'm sure the KDE group have a similar process for electing the KDE Core.

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• Re: Remember this by bart decrem on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @12:01

  Hi Shawn, Yes, the GNOME Foundation does release coordination and other functions that, I understand, are handled by KDE Core in the KDE project. But those functions are handled by the Board of Directors, which was elected by the hackers. The Advisory Board is just like the KDE League (as far as I know).

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Thanks for clarifying things for me.

As I said in the post, it was based on how I have percieved the Foundation from the little I have heard of it.

I was not out to shake a fist at anyone but to explain that from my point of view there was a big difference between the Foundation and the League.

Anyways, my point (even if I failed to get it through) is that an active PR organization is good for KDE no matter who is running it as long as it stays just that, a PR organization. Seeing that a few huge companies are willing to spend time and money on helping and supporting a non-profit development project will hopefully tip the scales for those small/mid and large sized companies who is deciding if they should stick with just Windows or port thier product to Linux.

It isn't like it is a competition between Gnome and KDE, we have like 90% or so market shares to Konquer from Gates if we have to compete with anyone.

If anyone took offense at my post, I am sorry.

// Fredrik

• Re: Remember this by bart decrem on Wednesday 15/Nov/2000, @13:09

  Hi Fredrik, No offense. It's just that I too have seen many stories misrepresenting what the GNOME Foundation is. In a way it's understandable given the hooply that was created by Sun etc. But since I've done a lot of work coordinating the Foundation, and I've spent a lot of time working to keep control with the hackers, I wanted to set the record straight. I agree that we need to find more ways to work together and focus on converting the rest of the world to free desktops. Also, I figure this is as good a place as any to start clearing up the miscommunications between the two projects so we can better work together in the future. Bart

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