Official proposal: how we define GNOME software

[alatiera (Jordan Petridis)]

I could help with that, are we going to be hosting new additions in a ‘Circle’ gitlab group and do we rebrand https://gitlab.gnome.org/World if so?

[j_arun_mani]

I’m in. Please feel free to put me in the work. I will be happy to help GNOME.

[bberg (Benjamin Berg)]

@allanday

Red Hat is quite a good example. I would say that it is the sponsoring organisation for Fedora but not for Nautilus, Evolution or Builder. In the former case, it owns some IP for the project and provides support to the wider community. In the latter cases, it pays for developer time but its official relationship with the project ends there.

Hmm, just saw this randomly. I don’t really see how such a difference can be expressed in a legally meaningful way. The work of Red Hat employees on Nautilus, Evolution or Builder does result in IP that is owned by Red Hat. The fact that the employees contributing to GNOME have a lot of freedoms is purely an organizational decision by Red Hat (technically the generated IP is contributed, not the time that was used to create it). Also, Red Hat is on the Advisory Board and sponsors projects in the “Circle” group both directly and indirectly (e.g Red Hat buying test equipment for developers, paying for travel, sponsoring infrastructure for the GNOME Project, paying Advisory Board Fees, …).

I think it would make sense to change the criteria from

• No existing fiscal sponsor

to something that suggests that the Foundation needs to be relied upon for certain purposes (e.g. holding a project domain names and trademarks). This could be a list, but maybe there is a broader way of saying something similar. i.e. the relevant part for me wouldn’t be whether a fiscal sponsor exists, but whether the project is willing to transfer certain administrative/legal/fiscal tasks to the GNOME Foundation.

[bberg (Benjamin Berg)]

I do think there is a generic criteria that can be used (but is not easily defined). i.e. is the GNOME Foundation able to take over the stewardship of the project in question even against the will of main contributing/sponsoring organisation/company/individual.

As an example, could something like OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice happen if the sponsoring organisation/individual changes their mind for some reason.

[allanday]

I could help with that

Wow, that’s awesome! Thanks.

are we going to be hosting new additions in a ‘Circle’ gitlab group and do we rebrand https://gitlab.gnome.org/World if so?

We’ll need a place to host modules that aren’t in GNOME or Circle. I was imagining that would be World, but I’m open to suggestions…

[tchx84 (Martin Abente Lahaye)]

The GNOME Circle is a great idea!

An app like Flatseal could be a good fit for the Circle, in case we are looking for an initial collection of apps to launch this program.

In any case, I am interested in helping.

[bernard_ei8fdb (Bernard Tyers)]

@ebassi

It’s actually hard to find more information about this issue post 2014. Of course, the underlying issue of the Chagos Islands and the mess that the UK made there is still ongoing.

There is some extra information (investigative journalism style) available on this interesting article -
http://citizen-ex.com/stories/io

[bernard_ei8fdb (Bernard Tyers)]

@allanday

If anyone would be interested in helping to get the Circle initiative off the ground, we’ll be looking for volunteers! The work will mostly involve reviewing apps and libraries, to see if they meet the criteria for joining. Just let me know if you’re interested.

I’m happy to help review apps and libraries. Can you point me towards a list of criteria and apps/libraries?