GNOME Foundation's new executive director is Canadian, a techie, and a GNOME user The GNOME Foundation has hired a new executive director to lead the organization, acting as GNOME's public face and leading the non-profit's fundraising efforts. In a post simply titled "Introducing Myself," new boss Steven Deobald does just that. He takes over a tough job from interim executive director Richard Littauer, who …
> As a white male...
You failed to mention the colour of his hair and his eyes. This is obviously extremely important and relevant information.
And I'm glad we managed to clear up any misunderstanding regarding his chromosomal make up. For the uninitiated, we call this a "man".
> ...but probably for the wrong reasons (not least his skin color or gender).
Jesus, what? Didn't you get the memo? White guilt is so passé these days.
"White guilt is so passé these days."
The previous executive director was chased away because she was a woman of a minority religion.
So being a "white male 'christian'" instead of a female shaman does make a difference.
You seem to be insensitive to the discrimination of others, but unwilling to contemplate the consequences of your own features.
In short, not someone who's opinion on discrimination should have any weight.
> The previous executive director was chased away because she was a woman of a minority religion.
She wasn't "chased away". She was mocked because she claimed to be a "shaman". Just like she would be mocked for claiming to be an alien, a "prophet" or a multitude of things that would evoke more than a titter in public discourse. She must surely have anticipated such a reaction after entering the public sphere, or maybe she lacks sufficient self-awareness?
The biggest problem in western society is that we have grown *too* tolerant, which is why our societies are rotting from the inside with division. We don't call out bullshit when we see it so minority groups turn our "compassion" against us. The kind of bullshit that gives us gems like "Islam is the religion of peace" and "solar freakin' roadways". I'm not a fan of dog piling: that is an Internet phenomenon that we can do without, but in order to preserve and bolster the rationality which has been the bedrock of western civilisation, we need to start calling out fanciful and idiotic thinking where we see it.
"Just like she would be mocked for claiming to be an alien, a "prophet""
If anything, your words seem to prove me right.
Shamanism is a religion just like Catholicism or Evangelism. The fact that you don't take other religions seriously is just what is meant with "discrimination".
I can listen to people talk about their religious beliefs all day long. It's fascinating.
But when they start mocking other people's religious beliefs I become quite hostile.
"Of course Jonah survived in the belly of a whale for multiple days and then emerged just fine to tell the tale."
OK, tell me more, I'm all ears.
"I believe in Jonah because the Bible tells me so, so it is true."
OK that's fine, I find it quite interesting and would like to hear more.
"But I'm not one of those Buddhist idiots who believe in something stupid like reincarnation!"
We're done, have a dumb life you stupid idiotic dummy goodbye.
If someone calls themselves a shaman I'd be interested in hearing them tell me more about that.
If someone else dismisses anyone who calls themselves a shaman, I would have less than zero interest in hearing anything further and would suggest with extreme prejudice an immediate vacating of my vicinity. Cheers!
> she claimed to be a "shaman". Just like she would be mocked for claiming to be an alien, a "prophet"
Yeah, no, bollocks to that.
It is not in any way any more ridiculous than any of the Abrahamic religions.
Be fair: treat them all equally. They are all silly fairy stories.
Personally I have far more respect for anyone with the guts to stand up and embrace a weird minority religion than I do for the followers of mainstream religions, who are just lazy in their irrational nonsense.
And I have nothing but contempt for the adherents of mainstream nonsense that mock niche minority nonsense.
Mock them all, or don't mock at all.
> She was mocked because she claimed to be a "shaman". Just like she would be mocked for claiming to be an alien, a "prophet" or a multitude of things ...
But why would you not include, say, rabbi, imam, priest, ... well, basically anyone who claims a privileged mystical status or personal relationship with <insert deity of choice> among those mock-able personages?
Will the new ED bring back some sanity to Gnome? Many of us long for the days of Gnome 2 when it was easy to use and tweak. Since Gnome 3? it has IMHO, become a total POS. I've moved away from it to XFCE, simply because you end up chasing your tail just to tweak something simple. KDE is IMHO just as bad.
"...don't appear to have a role in directing the specifics"
Yes, the role appears to be 'outward facing'. But you know how what I might term 'soft power' works in organisations. The fact that one of the big cheeses is 1) using Gnome; 2) has a need to use accessibility affordances to some extent; will diffuse slowly through the ranks, and in a process that is sometimes called 'alignment' bring about some changes. Not through direct commands or anything but just by the people who do decide between alternative possibilities changing their weightings slightly.
Icon: FOSS is important so one for all involved
Isn't that the advantage of Linux distros generally, though? If you don't get on with GNOME there are lots of other lovely choices out there - including MATE.
I don't mind GNOME 40 myself with the tweaks Ubuntu provides and that's coming from someone who was used to Windows 10 until a few years ago.
Pretty much any of the mainstream desktop environments are nicer to use than the POS that is Windows 11.
I actually went back to GNOME with Fedora 42 after many years of using Cinnamon since the time of the 3.0 abomination. I installed the extensions app, tweaks, and the "dash to panel" extension and it is close enough to Cinnamon/GNOME 2 that it made sense to quit trying to swim against the tide.
> I installed the extensions app, tweaks, and the "dash to panel" extension and it is close enough to Cinnamon
Quite. I have experimented myself and come to the same conclusion.
Linux Mint forked GNOME to make Cinnamon, and it's quite a complete rich desktop in its own right. It has its own add-ons and things.
*But* you can get 90% of the way there with GNOME extensions.
Zorin OS does this, without the burden of maintaining a full fork.
And then there is GNOME Flashback, the GNOME Classic session that Fedora bundles, which explicitly aims to reproduce the cosmetics of GNOME 2 specifically, while Cinnamon, Zorin etc. try to reproduce Windows.
For me, they all fall short: the result still has client-side decorations, no menu bars, default dialog buttons turn up in weird positions, you get multiple little hamburger menus, and all of GNOME's hundred little paper cuts.
If that's enough for you, good for you. It's not for me, but hey, live and let live.
Even so, it is a serious concern of mine. There's a _lot_ of replicated effort going on here. If all the people and teams working on replicating the Windows desktop got together and each took over one element or one control, they would have the pool of resources, time and skills to make a far better attempt, frankly.
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