GNOME Foundation announced about discussion preliminary plan, which defines the strategy, goals and priorities of the GNOME Project for the next 5 years, as well as actions that will help strengthen and expand the GNOME-related ecosystem. The plan was informed by ecosystem research and discussions with GNOME Foundation staff, management and members. The plan has now been reviewed by the GNOME Governing Council and has now been released for final public comment, during which anyone can leave your review.
Goals outlined in the plan:
- Ensuring the growth of the community of users and project developers.
- Establish a shared vision that unites the GNOME Foundation and the GNOME Project, defining clear roles, establishing a division of labor between groups, strengthening communication, and creating an environment for the exchange of ideas and collaboration.
- Creating a more inclusive leadership model; increase from 7 to 11 the number of voting members of the council; adding representatives from regions and committees without voting rights to the council; prioritizing women, people of color, underrepresented groups and people with disabilities when appointing women to leadership positions.
- Organizing the work of the management board and employees as teams interacting with each other. Strengthening the role of the CEO as a key representative for strengthening internal communications and dialogue with the internal community.
- Making GNOME more relevant and attractive to different people. Posts about the social benefits of GNOME, how it empowers people, helps the underprivileged, etc. Promotion of the slogan “Putting Power in People's Hands”. Create commercial and non-commercial partnership programs to involve marginalized people, women, minorities, youth and creative people in promoting GNOME. Formation of the GNOME Pathways Initiative educational program to train, mentor and advance participants in leadership from Africa, Latin America, Asia and other regions of the world.
- Increasing the commercial value of GNOME. Generate additional economic value for GNOME through specialist certification programs, API training, GNOME-compatible device labeling (“powered by GNOME”), and Flathub promotion. Expanding commercial and partnership relationships to support user base growth and application development. Reaching out-of-focus audiences, such as partnerships with government agencies and universities. Expanding the use of GNOME technologies beyond the primary context, for example, in mobile platforms, other desktop environments, embedded systems. Encouraging the creation of simple GNOME applications with GTK and emphasizing that the Linux desktop depends on GNOME technologies.
- Creation of a unified integrated set of programs, services and processes.
- Encouraging the use of GNOME technologies and services. Stories about the history of GNOME and how it makes people's lives better (for example, stories about the success of the Orca screen reader and the introduction of GNOME at Pixar). Flathub promotion. Integration of sponsorship functionality for Flathub-hosted app creators who participate in the GNOME Circle program. Development of the GNOME Development Initiative.
- Elimination of weak points in IT infrastructure and security. Identify and fix critical flaws in GNOME's security mechanisms. Protection against possible attacks through compromise of external dependencies (supply chain). Establish a paid position to develop tools for automated vulnerability scanning, digitally signing assemblies, and creating repeatable builds. Writing additional documentation and expanding tools.
- Reorganizing events and meetings into an annual, more inclusive and global conference that will serve as the centerpiece of the year for GNOME. Host regional events around the world at the same time as the main annual conference. Creation of an overall strategic model covering the GUADEC conference and regional events. Usage franchising when conducting regional events, maintaining their local relevance, but acting to achieve common goals. Bringing the central conference to self-sufficiency and profit. Providing sponsors with the opportunity to support competitions, hackathons, workshops and other events. Creation of a multi-level payment model for visits. Creating critical mass and increasing the attractiveness of events for sponsors by attracting an audience spanning diverse segments of society.
- Strengthening and stabilizing the GNOME Foundation as a non-profit organization.
- Documenting the activities and achievements of the GNOME Foundation.
- Conducting crowdfunding campaigns to support hard-to-finance initiatives. Organizing a joint fundraising for Flathub. Develop direct financing with foundations, government agencies and corporate partners.
- Carrying out a competent personnel policy and increasing the efficiency of personnel. Conducting bilateral annual audits, separating the roles of the management board and staff, delegating to employees the ability to make decisions in their areas of responsibility. Expanding the staff, for example, hiring a manager to distribute grants and additional DevOps specialists.
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