GNOME Advisory Board
The GNOME Advisory Board members are representatives of organizations and companies that support GNOME and have an interest in the future of the project. While the Advisory Board does not have decision-making authority for the GNOME Foundation, its members communicate with the Board of Directors and help the Directors guide the overall direction of GNOME and the GNOME Foundation.
The Board meets twice a year, in the summer and the winter. The aim of these meetings is to:
- Understand the Advisory Board's needs, and express them to the community.
- Express the community's needs to the Advisory Board, especially when it's something they can help with.
- Get feedback from the Advisory Board on our plans.
- Provide a space for Advisory Board members to discuss their GNOME-related work with one another.
Help Advisory Board members might be able to provide includes:
- Marketing
- Customer feedback
- Finances
- In-depth test results, such as usability tests, performance tests, etc.
- Resources
For a complete list of responsibilities, see the Advisory Board Members' Responsibilities.
1. Joining the Advisory Board
If your organization or company is interested in joining the Advisory Board, please contact the Executive Director.
2. Annual Fee
Advisory Board member companies pay an annual fee which helps finance the operations of the GNOME foundation. The reports that are published by the Foundation show how this money is used to help the GNOME project.
There are two levels for commercial companies:
Small company: <$10M revenue. $11,500 / year.
Medium and large company: >$10M revenue. $23,000 / year.
Fees run from October to September, and can be pro-rated if a member joins part way through the year.
Fees may be waived for invited non-profit organizations.
3. Current Members
The following are our Advisory Board members:
- Canonical
- Debian
- Endless
- Red Hat
- Sugar Labs
- SUSE
- The Document Foundation
4. Meeting Topics
Any community members should feel free to send their suggestions for agenda items to the GNOME Board of Directors, board-list (at) gnome (dot) org. In particular we are interested in hearing from community members who would like Advisory Board feedback on their plans or would like to share their plans with the Advisory Board. Past topics have included GNOME 3.0 updates, event updates and planning, and financial updates.