Cassidy’s Blog

Elect the next GNOME Foundation Board of Directors for 2025!

(Oh, and I'm running…)

It’s everyone’s favorite time of year, election season! …Okay, maybe not the most exciting thing—but an extremely important one nonetheless.

For anyone who doesn’t know, GNOME is comprised of many parts: individual contributors and maintainers, adhoc teams of volunteers, a bunch of open source software in the form of apps and libraries, a whole bunch of infrastructure, and—importantly—a nonprofit foundation. The GNOME Foundation exists to help manage and support the organizational side of GNOME, act as the official face of the project to third parties, and delegate authority when/where it makes the most sense. The GNOME Foundation itself is governed by its elected Board of Directors.

If you contribute to GNOME, you’re eligible to become a member of the GNOME Foundation, which gets you some perks (like an @gnome.org email address and Matrix account, blog hosting and syndication, and access to Nextcloud and video conferencing tools)—but most importantly, GNOME Foundation members vote to elect the Board of Directors. If you contribute to GNOME, I highly recommend you become a member: it looks good for you, but it also helps ensure the GNOME Foundation is directly influenced and governed by contributors themselves.

I’m Running for the Board!

I realized today I never actually announced this on my blog (just via social media), but this past March I was appointed to the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors to fill a vacancy.

However, the seat I filled was up for re-election in this very next cycle, so I’m happy to officially announce: I’m running for the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors! As part of announcing my candidacy, I was asked to share why I would like to serve on the board. I posted this on the GNOME Discourse, but for convenience, I’ve copied it below:

Hey everyone,

I’m Cassidy (cassidyjames pretty much everywhere)! I have been involved in GNOME design since 2015, and was a contributor to the wider FreeDesktop ecosystem before that via elementary OS since around 2010. I am employed by Endless, where I am the community architect/experience lead.

I am particularly proud of my work in early design, communication, and advocacy around both the FreeDesktop color scheme (i.e. dark style) and accent color preferences, both of which are now widely supported across FreeDesktop OSes and the app ecosystem. At elementary I coordinated volunteer projects, lead the user experience design, launched and managed OEM partnerships, and largely maintained our communication by writing and editing regular update announcements and other blog posts. Over the past year I helped organize GUADEC 2024 in Denver, and continue to contribute to the GNOME design team and Flathub documentation and curation.

I was appointed to the GNOME Foundation board in March to fill a vacancy, and I am excited to earn your vote to continue my work on the board. If elected, I will continue my focus on:

• Clearer and more frequent communication from the GNOME Foundation, including by helping write and edit blog posts and announcements

• Exploring and supporting fundraising opportunities including with users, OEMs, and downstream projects

• Ensuring Flathub continues to be recognized as the premier Linux app store, especially as it moves to enable financially supporting the developers of FOSS apps

• More widely communicating the impact, influence, and importance of GNOME and Flathub to raise awareness beyond the existing contributor community

• Helping ensure that the Foundation reflects the interests of the contributor community

I feel like the GNOME Foundation is at an important transformation point, and I look forward to helping steer things in the right direction for an effective, sustainable organization in support of the GNOME community. Regardless of whether I am elected, I will continue to contribute to design and communication as much as I’m able.

Thank you for your consideration!

Become a Member, and Vote!

Voting will be open for two weeks beginning June 5, 2025. If you contribute to GNOME, now is a great time to ensure you’re a member so you can vote in time; check the GNOME Discourse announcement for all of the specific dates and details. And don’t forget to actually vote once it begins. :)