Right after I wrote about my unexpected dream hacking routine at Endless, an intriguingly positive news arose: Endless joined GNOME Advisory Board, and I particularly think I should talk about that. That’s old news, but important nevertheless.

Let’s start.

Why does it matter?

Endless is intimately connected to GNOME. We extensively use the GNOME stack, and our apps are based on GNOME technology like GJS, GLib, Gtk+ and others. The spirit of Endless is to upstream as much as it can.

By joining the Advisory Board, Endless formally states that it supports GNOME. “Formally” because it was already rooted in the very essence on Endless for quite some time – many GNOME contributors (including me) work on Endless. Endless supports and motivates us to keep doing upstream work.

By growing the number of sponsors, GNOME Foundation calls attention. It’s an open door to make a difference.

A win-win situation

I’m really happy with the alignment between GNOME and Endless. Both teams end up winning on this game.

As a GNOME contributor, it is really satisfying to see it running on custom hardware. A GNOME-based OS, reaching people who never had contact with technology! More people knowing GNOME increases the number of potential contributors. If 0.1% of GNOME users ends up turning into contributors, and Endless wants, say, 1 billion users, that’s 10,000 potential contributors. Endless gives users and potential contributors for GNOME.

As an Endless employee that believe in it’s mission, using GNOME as the base of the system is cheap and easy. We don’t have to maintain applications, we just consume what’s already there – and obviously push it upstream when it makes sense. Also, we benefit from contributors’ work on the apps. GNOME gives a stable and amazing plataform for us.

In the end, GNOME benefits from Endless, and Endless benefits from GNOME. It’s a lovely relationship.