Dash to Panel Maintainer Quits

Mar 17, 2025

Charles Gagnon has stepped away as maintainer of the popular Dash to Panel Gnome extension.

It was just a week or so ago when we reported that the Gnome Dash to Panel extension received a massive update. Since then the extension maintainer, Charles Gagnon, has suddenly quit.

In the recent update, Gagnon added a pinned icon to the panel that when clicked would reveal a message about donations. After clicking the icon there was a 20-second timeout before the desktop was returned to the user.

That didn't sit well with users who called Gagnon out on GitHub as an "aggressive donation push," with one user (jmaargh) stating, "I absolutely defend the right of projects to ask for donations, but I believe this update was too much. In my case it was also counter-productive as I am now somewhat frustrated by the project."

Gagnon had posted on the extensions GitHub page that Dash to Panel needed help and that they'd be passing on the torch and asking anyone if they were interested in contributing to the project.

To some users, Gagnon was bullied out of being the maintainer of the popular extension, with one user (xalt7x) stating, "To me, the backlash on the #2259 is so wrong and undeserved! I don't have high hopes that vocal people on that thread will take the torch or even re-evaluate their ‘entitlement’. I just hope that @charlesg99 (Gagnon) won't perceive this as a state of a current FOSS community and see many more people that liked and appreciated his work."

If you're interested in taking over the project, check out the link to the GitHub page above and reply to the thread.
 
 

 
 
 

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