Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
Introduction to Free Software - SELF | Sharing Knowledge about ...
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© FUOC • P07/M2101/02709 149 <strong>Free</strong> <strong>Software</strong><br />
Although GNOME was created with the clear aim of providing a user-friendly<br />
and powerful environment, <strong>to</strong> which new programmes would gradually be<br />
added, it soon became apparent that it would be necessary <strong>to</strong> create a body<br />
that would have certain responsibilities that would allow them <strong>to</strong> promote<br />
and boost the use, development and dissemination of GNOME: consequently,<br />
the GNOME Foundation was created in 2000; its headquarters are situated in<br />
Bos<strong>to</strong>n, US.<br />
The GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organisation and not an industrial<br />
consortium; it has the following functions:<br />
• Coordinating the publications.<br />
• Deciding which projects are part of GNOME.<br />
• It is the official spokesperson (for the press and for both commercial and<br />
non-commercial organisations) of the GNOME project.<br />
• Promoting conferences related <strong>to</strong> GNOME (such as the GUADEC).<br />
• Representing GNOME in other conferences.<br />
• Creating technical standards.<br />
• Promoting the use and development of GNOME.<br />
In addition, the GNOME Foundation receives financial funds for promoting<br />
and boosting the functions mentioned above, as this was impossible <strong>to</strong> do in<br />
a transparent manner before the foundation was created.<br />
Currently, the GNOME Foundation has one full-time employee that is in char-<br />
ge of solving all the bureaucratic and organisational tasks that have <strong>to</strong> be done<br />
in a non-profit organisation that holds regular meetings and conferences.<br />
In general terms, the GNOME Foundation is divided in<strong>to</strong> two large commit-<br />
tees: a managing committee and an advising committee.<br />
The managing committee (the Board of Direc<strong>to</strong>rs) is formed, at the most, by<br />
fourteen members elected democratically by the members of the GNOME<br />
Foundation. A "meri<strong>to</strong>cratic" model is followed, which means that, in order<br />
<strong>to</strong> be a member of the GNOME Foundation, one has <strong>to</strong> have cooperated in<br />
one way or another with the GNOME project. The contribution does not ne-<br />
cessarily have <strong>to</strong> involve source code; there are also tasks that require trans-<br />
lation, organisation, dissemination, etc, which one could perform and then<br />
apply for membership of the GNOME Foundation, in order <strong>to</strong> have the right<br />
<strong>to</strong> vote. Therefore, it is the members of the Foundation that can put themsel-<br />
ves forward for the board of direc<strong>to</strong>rs and it is the members that, democrati-
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