Stormy Peters of the GNOME Foundation

Software Freedom Law Show episode 0x0D

May 12, 2009

Bradley and Karen interview the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, Stormy Peters.

Running time: 00:35:22.

Karen mentioned the Delta Delta Delta Saturday Night Live skit, when referring to the show number, 0x0D. (00:36)
Bradley referred to his confusion two episodes ago about mentioning Nehru jackets (00:57). Bradley meant to say “satin baseball jacket”, to refer to the Dead Kennedys' song MTV Get Off The Air. (01:05), but reference to Producer Dan made him think of music and the Beatles first, for various reasons. (Producer Dan's opinions on the Beatles still pending.)
Bradley mentioned that the only way to talk about music with Free Software is to talk about the Free Software Song, which wouldn't be a good idea. (02:20)
Bradley mentioned we hadn't previously had SFLC's clients as guests on the show, but Bradley forgot that on the third show, 0x02, Brett Smith of the Free Software Foundation was the guest. (02:50)
This week's guest is Stormy Peters, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation can be found as storming on identi.ca. (03:35)

Stormy discussed her blog post that covers 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) forms of non-profit structures. (04:22, 06:02)
The Linux Foundation is an example of a 501(c)(6) trade association. (07:20)
We discussed the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board (10:11)
Karen (and Stormy) mentioned the FSF Membership program. (11:48)
Stormy mentioned the Friends of GNOME program, that allows individuals to support the GNOME Foundation and its work. (12:37)
Bradley encouraged everyone to give US$200/year to their favorite FLOSS-related non-profits. (13:18) The FLOSS Foundations Group maintains a directory of FLOSS-related non-profits. (13:46)
Stormy noted that many for-profit companies have lists of non-profits you can donate to through charitable giving. Bradley didn't get a chance to note during the show that you can often have organizations added to these lists by requesting through the HR department. (15:00)
Karen mentioned that 501(c)(3) non-profits must meet the public support test. (16:44)
Stormy mentioned that GNOME could use help on the Usability List and the Marketing list (23:50).
Stormy mentioned that GUADEC is a major annual conference for GNOME, and this year it will be co-located with KDE's annual conference, Akademy. (26:20)

Bradley could find no easy online references to the old arguments about KDE being six months ahead of GNOME. He is somewhat relieved this is the case. (30:24)
Bradley mentioned the Travelocity gnome. (32:10)
Bradley mentioned that a gnome is featured in the 2001 film, Amélie, being photographed around the world (32:30)
Bradley mentioned that Free Software author Loïc Dachary does the same thing with a duck.

Send feedback and comments on the oggcast to <oggcast@softwarefreedom.org> or <oggcast@faif.us>. You can keep in touch with the SFLC on our IRC channel, #sflc on irc.freenode.net, and by following SFLC on identi.ca.