GNOME makes me sad
The GNOME Foundation seems to be ...kind of a train wreck. And that makes me sad because it represents such a vibrant group of people who make cool shit and give it away for free.
Every time I stop by the GNOME forums I come away grimacing. The community always seems to be in some state of discontent.
One day it's feature requests that devolve into "feel free to see yourself out". Another day it's a former director airing dirty laundry about being unduly banned.
Most recently there's been a thread where the foundation's president fumbled a condemnation of hostility toward queer community members. This one really spiraled, resulting in the resignation of at least one prominent contributor.
Aside from basic common sense1, I don't have much to bring to the table on these specific incidents. All I can say is that they all congeal into a general sense of something's wrong over there.
And it's a damn shame, because the GNOME desktop environment and its circle of open-source applications is an awesome place. It tends to inspire strong opinions, and hating GNOME is kind of a meme, but I think the Linux community is lucky to have it.
So, GNOME makes me sad. It has so much going for it, but there's something in its DNA that makes it a combative place. It's tempting to point at one thing: organizational blunders, prickly maintainers, or political hot potatoes. But it's really all of the above. How did it come to this?
It doesn't need to be this way, either. KDE, another organization that offers an analogous suite of software, seems to be a much more peaceful place. And issues that do pop up are usually handled gracefully.
Tech organizations often try to be apolitical, but volunteer-run projects need to foster some amount of goodwill to function. People give their time and energy because they believe in the mission.
Some folks can put their heads down and subsist on the feedback loop of laying bricks, while others want to look up and see good stewardship. It's possible to have both things.
Hopefully GNOME gets there one day soon.
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