Gnome Foundation Welcomes Holly Million as Executive Director
foundation.gnome.orgWhy did they feel it necessary to have such a role? I mean Gnome is one of the oldest OSS projects, and has been functioning reasonably well in the past 20-some years without it (as a project at least, I mean. I don't want to go into DE-preferences). The post announcing the job opening doesn't make me smarter unfortunately.
Like any project it needs to pay for its infrastructure and that comes from donations and sponsors.
The foundation also holds trademarks including the GNOME trademark that it is required to defend.
The foundation was setup to protect the project from legal issues, help fund the infrastructure,and build relationships that lead to fundraising and influence.
You might recall that GNOME had to defend its trademark at least once and was also hit with a patent troll.
Edited to add: The money also goes to help fund GUADEC and hackfests where maintainers meet to work on goals. So there is more than just the executive director - there is a whole team that manages events, finances, and brand.
This is not a new role, previous GNOME Foundation executive directors include Stormy Peters, Karen Sandler, and most recently Neil McGovern.
At the time, I interacted with both Stormy Peters and Karen Sandler during my GNOME time. Their work was really positive and really appreciated. During their time, their was no debate and everybody agreed that the money spent to pay them was money well spent.
(I don’t want to dismiss Neil McGovern but I simply have no experience working with him).
fundraising maybe? Usually those people are hired as rainmakers of some sort or another
That, and makes for a great low-impact scapegoat.
Finally someone to blame for GTK4 and Gnome Shell!
>> Finally someone to blame for GTK4 and Gnome Shell!
Having looked at moving from GTK3 to 4, I can understand the frustration. I also read a bunch of stuff and have concluded there are good reasons for the disruption, from making things more generic which allows new combinations of widgets (like images in menus) to allowing stuff to be in a different process. That does not mean the migration or support for doing it was handled well.
I was also disappointed to see they talked about having major releases at a regular cadence, which luckily they are way behind. Stability is a very important feature for toolkits and other infrastructure software. I would argue that being cross-platform and having stability are the 2 most important features of GTK and I hope it's a very long time before GTK5 comes along - if ever. The other major feature is the C API which allows it to have bindings to many languages.
I’d say that another major feature is that the maintainer of the toolkit is not interested in making sure the open-source version receives as narrow a use as possible. (The current maintainers of Gtk also did a fairly good job ensuring that, but at least it wasn’t an overt goal...) That ugh feeling from Qt, along with being forced to deal with C++ if I want to dive into the system, is the primary reason I haven’t switched to KDE, despite liking both their UX philosophy and their view of their place in the ecosystem[1] much more.
[1] https://youtu.be/IFGXVN9dZ8U (I don’t think there’s a text version, sorry)
That said, glad to see you working on the GTK4 port.
Expanding on that question — is the “Executive Director” role a paid position, and how (much) is the new recruit being compensated?
Hopefully she will be able to use her shamanic wisdom to lead gnome forward...
Looking at the qualifications and past experience of this pick I am starting to wonder what exactly was the rationale behind this? The only work history listed in her resume is as a consultant, and as "Holly Million the Shaman Artist".
This will be interesting to say the least.
I was surprised that such high profile science education bio-engineering project like BioBricks was led by a shaman. Never heard of scientific shamanism before, maybe it is the development model of GNOME which would explain a lot of things.
Her name sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel, for one.
Can she at least have razor blades under her fingernails?
I am glad it's not just me that thought of Saint Molly.
From TFA:
> Holly brings three decades of invaluable experience in nonprofit management, having served as a consultant, director of development, executive director, and board member for numerous organizations. Notably, she founded the nonprofit organization Artists United, dedicated to empowering individual artists and fostering collaboration across artistic disciplines for the collective good. Additionally, Holly served as the Executive Director of the BioBricks Foundation, an international, open-source biotechnology nonprofit.
Is it possible that you missed some items somehow? Would cross checking them against the article be a good idea?
> Notably, she founded the nonprofit organization Artists United
Artists United (https://www.artists-united.org/) is not confidence-inspiring. A barely edited Squarespace template with a few pages with a few paragraphs on most, including some unremoved Squarespace boilerplate.
No contact information.
No information on who runs it. Just a "manifesto" and a "call to action".
Looks like her Shamanism business is a side gig. I see her listed as a VP on another non-profit website[0], so I guess she actually does have a track record of non-profit management. It don't think it's entirely unusual for people to have side gigs, especially when they're in management consultancy. I have a C-suite sister-in-law who is also a Reiki practitioner.
I would beg to differ. It seems to have been one of her primary activities which she has invested quite a bit into.
And which she is trying to remove from historical records as we speak.
https://lunduke.locals.com/upost/4740497/gnome-foundation-hi...
Who decided this seemingly unqualified person, of all unlikely people, was fit for the highest role in managing a multi-decade software project?
This is a shady hire. I wouldn’t be surprised to see personal connections turning out to be the sole factor behind her getting offered this job.
"has raised millions of dollars throughout her career"
Gonna be another Mozilla, it seems?
I know it is cool to hate on Mitchell Baker here. Lack of qualifications is not a valid criticism. She has a law degree from Berkley. Passed the California bar exam in '87. Was a high ranking lawyer in Netscape as their first legal hire. Designed the Mozilla Public License. Created the Mozilla Foundation. She has been in executive roles for 20-30 years.
Yes. Mitchell Baker had every top job at Mozilla from 1999 to 2008. She was the Mozilla project's general manager, Mozilla Foundation's 1st president, and Mozilla Corporation's 1st CEO. She could be the wrong CEO for Mozilla now. But it couldn't be for inexperience.
Just goes to show hiring in house is no silver bullet
> Lack of qualifications is not a valid criticism.
On the contrary I would consider that the absolutely most justified, objective criticism one could find.
But then I’m one of those guys who thinks DEI (as preached by today’s social activists) is horseshit, and I think meritocracy is a good thing.
I’m not sure how those things are seen from within, by people more left leaning than me.
> I think meritocracy is a good thing.
The term "meritocracy" was coined as a satirical parody of effective governance.
https://www.routledge.com/The-Rise-of-the-Meritocracy/Young/...
It was meant to be a negative, and is used as a pejorative: as a very bad idea that became effectively a swearword.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41427674
Be careful what you wish for.
“It […] is used as a pejorative” Not to nitpick, but it clearly isn’t used that way by everyone, certainly not by the person you’re replying to.
It is used _in the book_ as a pejorative. That is the explanation from the definition that I link to.
The problem when a prominent wealthy company attempts to run its business on the basis of meritocracy is illustrated by the existence of projects such as GNOME, systemd, Wayland, and Flatpak.
What qualifications did she lack?
Who said anything about qualifications? She is a terrible CEO because she knows nothing about web browsers, and clearly couldn't care less about her companies products. Why would anyone ever make a lawyer a CEO of anything except a law firm? It's a self evidently terrible idea and the results are exactly what you'd expect.
Leadership's extensive knowledge of web browsers hasn't exactly been the silver bullet to guarantee Mozilla's future, given past performance. Technological superiority is less relevant when your opponents are monopolists who are making deals with each other to interlock their hardware and software.
Perhaps in a world where the largest threats to Mozilla's survival as a company are corporate maneuvering and deal making, a lawyer is the best CEO to choose by meritocracy argument.
How is this relevant, as far as I know Mozilla isn't a law firm
Huh. This is an incredibly generic announcement. If "GNOME Foundation" were replaced by "Gates Foundation" or "National Endowment for the Arts" it would still make sense. It had never occurred to me that open-source foundations might become non-profits first and foremost, with the actual work that they do more of a "backend" concern, but that seems to me to be the case. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and indeed non-profits might be forced into this narrow style of existence by laws and regulations. But it makes me worry that there might be a disconnect between the people running the non-profit and the actual users of the project. This is a "Linus Torvalds uses a macbook" moment, for me.
That all said, congrats to the GNOME Foundation and Holly, and I hope you accomplish whatever good deeds you set out to.
Brian Lunduke has done some digging on her[0].
She’s a “professional shaman”, and herb “medicine” maker operating on Facebook and Instagram.
No software background at all.
If this is the kind of hires ESG & DEI brings, I think we can already conclude those two to be failed philosophies, and that all the critics have been proven right.
[0] https://lunduke.locals.com/upost/4740497/gnome-foundation-hi...
Will she be paid a million?
Quick joke before the omnipresent Dang sounds his warning..
Holly Million, Batman!! (sorry, I couldn't resist...)
Seriously, I wish her all the best.
I hope they ditch their silly and excessive code of conduct.
What about it do you find silly and/or excessive?
The "Safety versus Comfort" section indicates they do not intend to apply the above sections above fairly.
I am having a hard time digesting that section too:
> "Reverse"-isms, including "reverse racism," "reverse sexism," and "cisphobia" ... The examples listed above are not against the Code of Conduct.
That in itself is a little 'wow'.
> Basic expectations for conduct are not covered by the "reverse-ism clause" and would be enforced irrespective of the demographics of those involved. For example, racial discrimination will not be tolerated, irrespective of the race of those involved.
At first I was confused by this, but now I get it, and still wow. "You're allowed to be racist/sexist, towards white people/cisgendered, just don't actually discriminate against them".
"Safety vs Comfort". Huh.
"It's more important that people be/feel safe than you feel comfortable" - I agree.
But if you need "cisphobia" and "reverse racism" to feel safe, then this is hugely problematic.
Honestly, I actually am somewhat shocked that this isn't more controversial.
The idea is that racist remarks against, say, black people carry an implicit threat of harm, whereas racist remarks against whites do not because white people hold the reins of power. Hence, verbal racism against black people threatens their safety whereas verbal racism against white people only threatens their comfort. Implicit in this is the notion that maybe white people should feel uncomfortable, as their comfort is based largely on a system that discriminated (historically to the point of atrocity) against nonwhites.
So to be clear, it should be a safe space, but only for some? For others, it should be a space that they are free to be attacked, as punishment for the prior sins of others? Because this isn't even equality, or affirmative action, this is saying "you are free to attack some people on the basis of their race, or sex - things outside of their control".
It also still doesn't address the core concern. If you require being able to be sexist or racist to someone to make you feel safe in your space, that's a problem.
Everyone outside San Francisco thinks this is problematic.
But we are banned and censored in a systemic fashion on most social media (Twitter/X being the one, big exception), and labeled “alt right” trolls … or racists, and everyone on the left is ok with censorship being applied upon those views.
For grand irony, I am very left wing (socialize healthcare and education, de-escalate/demilitarize police, etc., etc.), and think the above is problematic.
You need a code of conduct to tell you to not be violent?
We don't but it's bizarre that when told to not be violent, your first thought is "wow this is excessive".
I'm already told that by the biggest code of conduct of all- the law.
It will be useful to have their own laws when GUADEC will hold on a cruiseship in international waters /s