The first half of 2020 has been full of growth for GNOME. Caroline Henriksen and Melissa Wu joined the Foundation team; we launched the Community Engagement Challenge; and we expanded our technical infrastructure to include three new servers. As a community and project, we continue to grow, including the GNOME 3.36 release and the University Outreach initiative launch.
As a Foundation, we consider ourselves stewards of the GNOME Project – we look after the community’s wants and needs, we drive forward the efforts no one else can take on, and we make the things that need to happen happen.
As stewards, we are most concerned with the needs of the community. What do the GNOMEies want us to focus on? What will make the experience of our users better?
We’re asking you to vote with your donations. When you donate to the GNOME Foundation during May, you’ll be asked whether we should give extra focus to building GNOME community in Africa or WebKitGTK for GTK4?
Your donations will help GNOME grow in the directions we need to in order to meet the needs of contributors and users everywhere.
Building GNOME Community in Africa
While we have long had GNOMEies in Africa, the communities there have recently been concentrating their efforts. There are multiple events and projects in the works, including the Pan African GNOME Summit.
GNOME is a global project with a global community and a goal to build elegant, efficient, easy to use software for users of every ability and geography. We cannot satisfy that goal without having enthusiastic voices from people of every ability and geography.
WebKitGTK for GTK4
GTK is used to create interfaces and UI elements. It is an integral part of the GNOME ecosystem, used by many both inside and outside the GNOME Project. With considerable effort by GTK core developer and Foundation employee Emmanuele Bassi, GTK4 is well underway. An important step in the development of GTK4 is WebKitGTK.
WebKitGTK creates better web experiences. With web content rendering, process separation, accessibility, audio, and video support, and 3D CSS and accelerated rendering, WebKitGTK is a robust project bringing functionality to desktop computers, laptops, televisions, and mobile devices.