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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

> Karen Sandler is the former Gnome Foundation executive director who caused them to run out of money

For an in-depth argument from a Gnome board member on why this is a completely false accusation, see here: http://jeff.ecchi.ca/blog/2015/09/13/outrageous-outreach/

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Errm, that's almost exactly the same as what I said, he's just spinning it differently to make it look like a minor issue and omitting certain facts, like the fact that the cash shortage he downplays as a "purely a business accounting issue" meant that they had to freeze promised reimbursements to Gnome developers for expenses they'd already incurred to attend Gnome development events because they no longer had enough cash in their bank account to pay them and still cover admin costs. This is mentioned in the mailing list announcement: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.foundation.general...

(To be clear, I don't think their liabilities were ever in danger of exceeding their assets, but you can't pay wages and bills with a promise from Google to pay you money at some unspecified point in the future once it winds through their accounting process. I believe there was even some risk that they might not have enough money for the admin expenses involved in invoicing companies for OPW and chasing them up. Cashflow is never some minor accounting detail - screwing it up kills companies.)

Without knowing a thing about the case, just by reading your posts and the linked rebuttal:

No, that doesn't seem to be the same. The mailing list explicitly states what the rebuttal claims as well: They were bad at collecting money for a time.

The mailing list _doesn't_ state that the director was in any way responsible. Your words were "the former Gnome Foundation executive director who caused them to run out of money". The reponse to your post linked to a statement that claimed that this isn't true and your link doesn't support that argument either.

I'd say that this ("She is the reason/she caused the foundation to run out of money", directly implying a personal responsibility) is a very big difference between these two stories. You might be correct - I wouldn't know. But again: I wouldn't consider these two statements (exactly or even remotely) the same.

She was the Gnome Foundation head honcho and co-lead of the Outreach Project for Women (the other co-lead was apparently from Red Hat, not Gnome) during the time period in question. Of course she was responsible. No doubt other people screwed up too, but according to the official FAQ they simply didn't have enough admin staff to keep up with the accounting work generated by the OPW and that too was her responsibility, because that's what being in charge means. Incidentally, she resigned about a fortnight before that announcement.

They weren't just bad at collecting money either - if I'm understanding their announcements and FAQ correctly, the OPW came with contractual deadlines for Gnome to pay participants but no similar deadlines for sponsors to pay Gnome, which is why they had to prioritize OPW payments over everything else.

No, it's not. The article they cited comprehensively rebuts your comment above --- it was as it was written specifically to object to that comment! And your attempt to retcon the comment into something congruent with the article further damages the credibility of your argument.

I'll note further that pejorative comments about "feminists" seems to be something of a "beat" of yours. Maybe you should lay off it for awhile.

> After all companies paid their share, the foundation became solvent. This is purely a business accounting issue arising from dealing with rapid growth because the outreach program was so successful.

I am completely ignorant of this situation, but it is clear that the source you provided doesn't dispute the allegations but instead provides further support that the allegations are true.

The outreach program was so successful that the company went out of business!

And it was the accounting department's fault! Not the person in charge! (anyone care for a game of office politics?)

Honestly, the allegation came across as absurd in the original post, but your post makes me think that the story might actually be true.

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