Someone Pledged $1 Million to the GNOME Foundation Anonymously

An anonymous entity just pledged to donate $1 million to the GNOME foundation over the next two years.

In case, you weren’t aware, GNOME Foundation is the non-profit organization behind the popular GNOME desktop environment and its associated suite of applications. The project was started in 1997 by two then-university students with the aim to produce a free desktop environment.

The GNOME desktop environment needs no introduction today considering that it is being used as the default desktop for Ubuntu and Fedora. Almost all major Linux distributions like OpenSUSE Leap 15 also support GNOME as a desktop environment.

The million dollar donation

Anonymous donation to GNOME Foundation

In the official blog post addressing the announcement of the donation, the GNOME Foundation mentioned the plan – just an idea of – how they are going to use the donation for the improvement of the GNOME project.

Here’s what the GNOME Foundation said:

β€œAn anonymous donor has pledged to donate up to $1,000,000 over the next two years, some of which will be matching funds. The GNOME Foundation is grateful for this donation and plans on using these funds to increase staff to streamline operations and to grow its support of the GNOME Project and the surrounding ecosystem.

While the GNOME Foundation has maintained its position as a proponent of the GNOME Project, growth has been limited. With these funds, the GNOME Foundation will be able to expand and lead in the free software space.β€œ

The GNOME Foundation will reveal the details of how they’d be utilizing the donation in the coming weeks.

Also, the Executive Director (Neil McGovern) had something to say in a statement:

β€œI am very excited to lead the GNOME Foundation during this time. We are honored by the trust given to us and will work hard to justify that trust. This particular donation will enable us to support the GNOME project more widely, and tackle key challenges that the free software community faces. As a substantial element of this donation is matched funds, we will continue to fundraise for general events and specific projects, and hope that the generosity of all our donors continues.β€œ

The million dollar question: who is anonymous donor?

Well, who is the anonymous entity, still remains to be a question, but most probably it is an organization (as opposed to an individual) like Canonical – could be. We know nothing about it. So, Lord Gaben? Elon Musk? Okay, that’s a no-no!

Nevertheless, the donation will definitely help the GNOME foundation to step up its game and improve the desktop environment for an even better experience in the coming years. Even we at It’s FOSS make a tiny donation of $5 per month to support the awesome work by GNOME team.

What do you think about the $1 million anonymous pledge? Who could be the mysterious donor? If you have an opinion on how the donation should be utilized by the GNOME foundation, what would it be?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

About the author
Ankush Das

Ankush Das

A passionate technophile who also happens to be a Computer Science graduate. You will usually see cats dancing to the beautiful tunes sung by him.

43 comments
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Marco
Once you start using a window manager like bspwm, you will enjoy up asking yourself what's the point of a Desktop Environment. It does the same job leaving a extremely low footprint on system resources.
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timmidforce
I could see Google inc. doing this, especially if they get a tax write-off.
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Eric Espino
It is GTK+ the real star, look at all the projects that use it.
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nitrofurano
would be far better if this donation went to Mate project instead of Gnome
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josh
I'm a user of elementary os, which uses the gnome environment. I'm so glad that the people who programmed this environment that also supports my car favorite os is getting support!
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Victor Dugas
Personally, being in the computer industry for 30 years and watching it grow and expand into it's own space completely has been rather interesting. I switched to Ubuntu about 10 years ago after researching and testing most every Linux Distro and window environment that can be found online because I had no choice. Windows is dangerous to life as we know it, everything you do on windows is dangerous, I am a windows security expert and I know that we can dress it up, put makeup on it, but a pig is still a pig. Gnome is by far the window environment of the future, and this is what this boils down to. I realize what the other fella said, that the whole idea of Linux is personal choice. But I also know society and humanity, its always been about "may the best man win". Gnome has had a lot of problems, memory leaks, compatibility issues, but its fan base for the most part has stuck with it. It is solid even though the issues. Toss a million bux on the flames and the fire will explode. Should they use the funds intelligently, they could potentially toss off the last rails that Winblows hang on by...wouldn't take much, like I say, the potential is there...
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Eddie G.
Ok. So on the issue of there being "too many desktop versions"? Nonsense. The entire point and purpose most people move to Linux is to get AWAY from having their desktop environment dictated to them by someone else. (Just because YOU like doesn't mean EVERYONE else will. I[m perfectly fine with Cinnamon.....XFCE.....Gnome (my personal favorite!...bugs and all!) and the other offerings out there. Openbox....i3....LXqT etc. For someone to come along and "shut down" the smaller desktops just because they think more manpower thrown at the majors will make it better shows the very same lack of allowing people to choose of their own free will. Ok.....'nuff said! On the matter of the donation....CONGRATULATIONS Gnome-sters!....I wish you guys and gals continue to crank out one of the most visually appealing.....totally functional...and quite unique desktops of the last two centuries! LoL! Keep on making it awesome....user-friendly...and functional and you'll have fans spanning the globe! Are there things that could be "better? of COURSE!...(one thing that comes to mind?...please at some point give us the ability to move the notification that pops up in Folder views!....like when you delete something....that box that pops up and covers some of the folder window!....or maybe in Gnome Tweak?...allow us to "hide" or remove it altogather!...after all...when I delete something I KNOW it deleted!...I don't need another pop-up telling me I just deleted something! Hahaha!) But other than that?....I feel you're headed in the right direction on ll fronts!
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Marshall Neill
I would love to see something along those lines for Xfce. They care about the user, not vice versa.
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Aamir Shahzad
I look this as an aid for GNOME Mobile which could be used in Purism Librem 5
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OIE
My money is on Microsoft - contributions to Gnome all but ensure that Linux will keep spinning its wheels in the desktop.
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Dave
For heaven sake Gnome team, please fix the excess memory usage on the Gnome Desktop, I think its horrible compared to other desktop.
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Abhishek Prakash
I thought it was fixed already.
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marathone
I bet it's Canonical or their benevolent dictator for life.
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Abhishek Prakash
"their benevolent dictator for life"? Is it MS?
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Pedro R.
Maybe google? They run Gtk applications on chromeOS now? Right?
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dude
Micheal Cohen?
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Nasko
Could be Librem, they've hit about a million above their fund raise goal and are going to use GNOME on their device.
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Abhishek Prakash
They also have plans to use KDE Plasma :)
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Paul
Shame it didn't go to Cinnamon.
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ericek111
I'd rather see $1M on MATE's account. Gnome folks are unable to fix well-known bugs for months. Focusing development capabilities on one project might (and usually does) hurt alternatives in the long run. I'm not saying to fragment the user base even more, but I'd prefer developers to work equally good on a few DEs, say Gnome, MATE, KDE, XFCE than on a single one that I really don't like. :P
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Ben
I agree. I'm a big fan of GNOME, but I really want to see $1M donated to MATE, $1M to KDE, and I don't know about XFCE but I guess it's OK too. I think it would be great if we had 3-4 desktops that get all the resources, as opposed to the duplication of effort that we are getting with GNOME vs. Budgie vs. Cinnamon vs. KDE vs. LXDE vs. LXQT vs. Pantheon vs. XFCE vs... well, the list goes on and on, and that is exactly the problem.
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Nicolas62
In my opinion, it's the Pineapple Fund, because he had not given money to a Linux association yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Fund
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Shivam
Apple or Microsoft
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Brett Salemink
I thought it was part of Microsoft's plan to buy Linux, and make me ender hours of upgrades to Microsoft Winlux -11?
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Abhishek Prakash
I doubt. Both of them have no interest in desktop part of Linux.
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Ben
This is really good news. I'm a big fan of gnome, and it's good to see that there is some real funding for an open source project. If Gnome can emerge as a leader and 'swallow up' developers from tiny projects that have no future, so they're working on something bigger than just one guy who codes in his free time, then it would mean open source software is better for everyone. I don't mean that Gnome should take over and drive everyone else out of business. But really, there should be only 3 desktops at the most: Gnome, MATE, and KDE. What is Budgie? Duplication of effort. Cinnamon? Same. XFCE and LXDE? Ditto. Every project I listed offers something unique and wonderful, but in the open source community, we really need to consolidate developers so Linux becomes more mainstream-ready and polished. Think of it this way: Imagine that KDE, Gnome, and MATE each have 9 severe bugs, and the rest of the smaller desktop environments have all their own bugs that need to be dealt with. Each developer can fix one bug a month, and Gnome, KDE and Cinnamon have 3 developers each. There are, meanwhile, 12 other Linux developers that are working on other desktop environments. It's going to take a while to fix those bugs, right? My Gnome and your KDE will be very buggy for the next 3 months, because all the manpower that could be helping improve our experience is wasted on other desktops and projects that we DON'T REALLY NEED. I don't mean to say that Linux is unstable - far from it, I've experienced few problems with Gnome. But imagine how much better Gnome would be if Budgie's 2 developers could help with it. How much better KDE would be if the 3 Elementary OS developers were helping out. How much better MATE would be if 4 developers came from various other projects to be part of something bigger than themselves. Duplication of effort in the Linux community really needs to be addressed, and Gnome's huge donation will really help with that. Because why would I build a DIY car if there are already 3 beautiful Porsches sitting in my driveway that just need a little work?
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twogun
Why are there so many desktops? Simple because in the past Gnome and KDE made very poor decisions forcing developers to either fork or bake their own solution. So limiting the number of Desktops would only give these entities the arogance to make the same kind of mistakes again and again. Until we are left with desktop solutions so horrible people would rather use windows. Compitition will make these entities listen to the users and deliver a desktop the users want instead of the one they are being told they want. Aside from that. Even if you were going to limit the number of desktops why would you leave out XFCE? We need XFCE. In my opnion it is the best desktop. Look at how many distros use it as the default. I don't care for gnome, but I would not make a list of desktops without. So why would you make a list of desktops without XFCE.
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dominicus
Limiting the available desktop environments is a bad idea IMHO. This is against the whole philisophy of the Linux word. There are several OSs, where there are limitations of your choices (e.g. Windows or MacOS) here CEOs will determine what you will like. I am using Linux because I want to determine what I like and here I am free to chose from a dozen or more DEs. My fav DE is Xfce, btw, so I would not like seeing it going down the toilet.
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Paul
You obviously need a Mac. Linux is about freedom, and you can't have freedom without choice. Personally I love Cinnamon and hate Gnome.
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Ben
Guess what? I do have a Mac, and I hate it! Between Finder's comical limitations, the confusingly different keyboard shortcuts, and Apple's obsession with 'verified developers', comparing my philosophy to a Mac user is a whole different ball game than talking about lessening the duplication of effort a little. GNOME, Cinnamon, etc. is designed for people who want to get stuff done, Mac is designed for idiots and people who care more about showing off their shiny computer than what it can actually do. Linux is definitely about freedom, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need financial support, or that having a gazillion options, all of which have to be supported, is good for it.
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Rhetorical Outsider
This is what I like about Linux. There are many options for me to choose from. I currently use Openbox + tint2 + Albert, and I don't intend to go for Mate, or KDE or Gnome(maybe when they fix its bugs, I really enjoy its layout, I find it fascinating). Limiting the number of available options would make it a limited system as windows and Mac.
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twogun
I currently use Openbox + tint2 + Albert This looks like a nice low resource solution. I'll have to try it out in an vm. I love XFCE, but I't nice to have a solution for older machines that just don't have the power.

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Abhishek Prakash
I wish it was that simple . The code base for GNOME and KDE is different AFAIK. Devs working on it together will be a difficult task.
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Ben
That doesn't matter because GNOME and KDE would still be separate projects to preserve choice and competition. I do think that the gazillion smaller projects should consolidate into those; instead of having enough mediocre desktops to fill a movie theater, we could have three excellent desktops. So it's good that GNOME is getting some serious funding so they can really become something that people are paid to work on, and therefore much better - especially more stable and polished. Because people won't fix bugs unless you pay them.
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Geo
I agree for the most part, although at this point I think we have a good amount of uniformity, gnome and kde are the more commonly used desktops followed by the others. It's good to have other little side projects building their own desktop environments to either force other desktop environments to add specific features or take over and become the new mainstream DE :)
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Leinatan
Can't say if great news or... opposed to the open-source philosophy?
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Abhishek Prakash
I don't see how could this be against the open-source philosophy.
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Leinatan
Well surely this statement needs some argumentation! (and, when I said "not sure", I meant it) It just makes me wonder: as in every field/organisation/institution ever, big donations can cause some bias in the goals pursued, as the donor gains influence. Even more when the donor remains anonymous. We can't be sure of the purposes of the gift (and with such an amount there has to be) and there is a risk of "instrumentalisation" of GNOME development, which is not really the spirit behind community development... that being said, it could all very well be a genuinely generous gift! Plus, the community still has something to say about it. So, just wondering...
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Ben
Yeah, that's a concern. But really, Linux needs a lot of money to become polished and ready for the mainstream. Hate to say it, but one guy or gal coding in their free time, subject to burnout and lack of monetary reward, will not make a good desktop. What will? Donations like the one GNOME just got. GNOME's past income (which is quite considerable) is the reason it's so good already, and why others aren't. So we have to put aside our (sometimes extreme) attitudes about everything being community-developed, for the good of Linux.
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Leinatan
I can only agree with you, and I sometimes find Linux fans annoying when they go too extreme... The ideal would be, of course, that every linux user gave small (or not so small) amounts so that the developers could make a living out of it. But that's not happening, so this donation comes as a blessing indeed :-) That being said, I'm going to donate a few dollars right away!
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Ben
Me too! To be honest I hate to BUY software, like Microsoft makes you do, but I really don't mind donating $25 to GNOME or MATE once in a while. And that's how it should be, I feel like it would help if Linux users were more aware that Linux costs money too, the only difference is that Linux doesn't force users to bear that cost. But they should still help to do so.
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Pol Marcet SardΓ 
Do you imagine if it was good old Bill Gates? It would be some surrealistic shoking news. XD (Obviously it won't)
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Abhishek Prakash
I doubt if Gates has any interest in desktop Linux.
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