One of the amazing things about the GNOME project is how it brings people together, both by bringing new developers into free software for the first time, and by fostering cooperation and interoperability between different Free Software components.

In 2016, we held hackfests focused on pushing forward the GNOME platform, with focus on user experience, developer experience, Flatpak, GStreamer, and GTK+. GUADEC 2016 was hosted in Karlsruhe, Germany, and GNOME.Asia 2016 was hosted in Delhi, India. Additionally, we hosted the Boston Summit, Hack Camp 2016, and the inaugural Libre Application Summit, in Portland, Oregon, USA. Conferences and Hackfests are a vital part of that effort: to not only develop our own software, but a complete integrated free and open source technology stack. These events are key opportunities for the open source world to collaborate and work on joint solutions. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the hundreds of volunteers who help organize these events – they continue to support the development efforts and help build a strong community. Additionally, to our sponsors of our conferences - we extend our gratitude.

Finally, I’d like to thank our advisory board members, and those individuals who have donated to us over the course of the year. The funding of the project allows the above events to happen, and the support from the advisory board and the community through the Friends of GNOME program ensures that the Foundation is able to drive the future innovation that GNOME brings to the whole Free Software system.

As a community controlled 501(c)3 organisation, we strive to produce the best environment for organizations, developers and users. The "year of the Free Software desktop" may not be in the next twelve months, but for those that use GNOME, we can work together to ensure that software freedoms are accessible by all.

Reviewer Notes

Comments by Rosanna

• first paragraph - shouldn't that be "…both by…" instead of "…either by…" and changing the "or" to an "and"?
• last paragraph - do we want to add conference sponsors and recurring donors as well?