GNOME Director Moves To MozillaGNOME Director Moves To Mozilla

Long-time open source software advocate Stormy Peters on Tuesday resigned as executive director of the GNOME Foundation and is heading to Mozilla to head its open web developer engagement program.

Although Peters' official two-year tenure with GNOME ends this weekend, she will continue to support and work with the organization, she said in her blog.

"I will continue to be active in the marketing team and I am always available to chat or help. My focus for the short term will be helping the board hire my replacement," said Peters. "When elections open up for the GNOME board of directors next spring, I plan to run."

Mozilla made Peters an attractive offer that tied into her pursuit of developing an open web, she said.

"As you all know, I think we need to be pushing for freedom on the web as much as we've pushed for it on the desktop. So I see this next step as continuing in my contributions to making sure users have a completely free and open experience when using technology," Peters said. "Working on developer engagement at Mozilla will let me dedicate more of my resources to making sure developers have the tools and knowledge they need to create applications on the open web."

GNOME is working on a job description and soon will officially open a search for a replacement executive director, according to minutes from its Nov. 2 meeting.

"You've left a tough spot to fill now that you've done such fine work in the job. I'll keep candidates in mind and look forward to the job description post," said GNOME and Free Software Foundation board member Bradley Kuhn, during the meeting.