Two months after Holly Million tendered her resignation — and a month-and-a-half after leaving — the financially strapped Gnome Foundation announces that the search is on for a new executive director.
The Gnome Foundation, which looks after the real-world minutiae needed to produce what is arguably Linux’s most used desktop environment, announced today that it has officially “opened the search” to find a new executive director. As part of the search it’s accepting applications from anyone interested, with a deadline of September 20 which is only seven days from now.
Why the rush? You can draw your own conclusions, but I have a few ideas of my own, none of which gives me a good feeling about the goings on at Gnome. My first thought is that Gnome’s board has already chosen someone and that the job search announced today is only a show, so that nobody connected with the organization who wants the job will feel left out. It could also be that they’ve already collected some applications internally, or at least have a good idea who, from within the organization, is standing in line to apply, and feel confident that the gene pool is already big enough that seven days will suffice.
The third possibility is that the board is simply incompetent and doesn’t know what it’s doing — which is not a thought I would’ve entertained a few years back but which is something I’m willing to consider today.
Anyway, here’s what the folks at Gnome have to say, just in case the job sounds like something that might interest you:
“As the cornerstone of our leadership team, the executive director will play a critical role in shaping the strategic direction of the foundation, working closely with staff, community members, and partners to expand our reach and impact. The ideal candidate will have professional experience working with nonprofits, a strong passion for open-source software, a deep commitment to our community values, and the vision to drive the next phase of GNOME’s growth and development.”
According to Gnome’s website, the job pays $120k-$150k — depending on experience — with a benefit package that’s pretty normal. Included are 30 days paid time off, unlimited sick days, comprehensive healthcare coverage for US applicants, 401(k) retirement savings for US applicants with a basic safe harbor match. It appears that this is a remote position, although I’ve been unable to verify that. Skill-sets — both those that are required and those that would just be nice to have — can be found on Gnome’s website.
Do Your Really Want the Job?
If you’re thinking that I’m a little less than enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing a fresh new face leading the way at Gnome, that’s because I am.
Gnome’s last executive director, who left at the end of July, was Holly Million, who came to the table as a professional shaman (I’m not kidding). I’m figuring that she isn’t very skilled as a soothsayer — or at least forgot to check her crystal ball before taking the job — because she only lasted nine months before calling it quits.
Million was also taking taking over at a company that for three years had been spending considerably more than it had been taking in, a situation that was about to reach crisis stage — and one which her replacement will inherit.
In April of this year, or about six months after Million was hired, the foundation’s president, Robert McQueen, announced that the shape of organization’s finances required immediate attention.
“The foundation has a reserves policy which specifies a minimum amount of money we have to keep in our accounts,” he wrote in a blog post. “This is so that if there is a significant interruption to our usual income, we can preserve our core operations while we work on new funding sources. We’ve now ‘hit the buffers’ of this reserves policy, meaning the board can’t approve any more deficit budgets – to keep spending at the same level we must increase our income.”
Shortly after the budget was frozen, the board instituted a Five Year Strategic Plan to get the organization’s finances in order, but it’s not known how successfully that’s been implemented.
Since stepping down a month-and-a-half ago, Richard Littauer, founder of Maintainer Mountaineer which builds command line interfaces for open source projects to use on GitHub, has been holding the reins as interim executive director.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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