Dash to Panel maintainer quits after donations drive becomes dash to disaster

Tin rattling earns rebuke from GNOME extension's original developer as well as dozens of everyday users

The maintainer of one of the most popular extensions to customize the GNOME desktop is stepping down and seeking someone to take over development after a fundraising effort backfired.

Charles Gagnon wrote on the Dash to Panel GitHub page this week:

I'll be passing on the Dash to Panel torch. Please let me know if you're interested in contributing to the project.

Quebec-based Gagnon of Decymal has been involved in Dash to Panel since January 2018, though his contributions don't go back as far as the project's origins. In its first couple of years, most of the work was done by Jason DeRose, although he hasn't made any changes since 2021. The extension was originally based on the Zorin OS taskbar by Artyom Zorin – however Dash to Panel's original README says that it was in turn based on Michele Gaio's Dash to Dock. (Even more people use that extension. Not only does it have nearly nine million downloads, but the Ubuntu Dock is a fork of Dash to Dock.) So if someone else does take over, it won't be the first time.

Gagnon's move follows an attempt to raise some donations that backfired badly. The Dash to Panel extension, which at the time of writing has been downloaded an impressive 4,009,303 times, merges two parts of the GNOME Shell, the top bar and the "dash," into a single, Windows-like taskbar. The project's GitHub page includes numerous screenshots showcasing its appearance.

His effort to raise funds for the project has gone down exceptionally badly with some users, as the feedback on the change shows. Gagnon asked for some cash by adding a pinned app icon to the panel, in the form of a red heart. Clicking it revealed a message requesting donations, and this – together with the menu option to hide the new icon – had a 20-second timeout attached. The combination of grabbing the first place on the panel (and the accompanying hotkey) and the enforced wait upset several users, with comments calling it an "agressive [sic] donation push," complaining that "this level of forced interaction with a donation request is completely unacceptable," and "I don't think trust should be placed upon the project and it's [sic] core developers."

In response, Gagnon moved the donation buttons to the end of the icons in the panel, but the thread of complaints continued. Original developer Jason DeRose commented:

As the person who started this repo several years ago, and even though @charlesg99 has probably put in much more total time into the project than me at this point, I feel compelled to chime in here.

[…]

I feel this sort of intrusive advertising is against the spirit of this project.

Gagnon replied:

That, I didn't expect 😄. I'm still enjoying working on the extension, I just can't justify to do so as much as I'd like nowadays. Thought the donations would help with that, but clearly I'm wrong. So yeah, I removed all donation options and I'll be looking for replacement maintainers.

DeRose responded with regret:

After reading through many of the comments that followed here and elsewhere and reconsidering my opinion, I feel that I shouldn't have put in my 2 cents here.

[…]

So for the record, I'd like to apologize to @charlesg99 and hope he continues to do with this project whatever is best for him.

It's a shame, but after such a backlash, even including a rebuke from the previous main developer, we can't say we entirely blame him. The volume of complaints underscores the extension's popularity; many people use this tool daily. It's also a standard part of some distros, such as the AlmaLinux-based Oreon Lime.

How to fund FOSS development is an ever-growing problem, and this vulture tends to agree with original open source pioneer Bruce Perens: the FOSS world needs to invent new types of post-GPL licenses, ones that help developers get paid. A few decades ago, nag screens in shareware were the norm. This was perfectly acceptable in the '80s. Clearly, such tactics are no longer tolerated.

Gagnon isn't the only open source maintainer throwing in the towel this week. In the same email that announced the release of KDE Plasma 6.3.3, the project's release manager, Jonathan Riddell, said:

Please note I will step down from Plasma release management after the 6.3 series.

Riddell has been involved in KDE for a long time, and was one of the founding volunteers who helped start the Kubuntu remix of Ubuntu. For a while, Canonical employed him, although that position ended a decade ago – albeit not without a few years' advanced warning. ®