GhostBSD is seeking an XFCE maintainer—so do not hesitate to volunteer.
This role is lighter in scope than maintaining XFCE directly in FreeBSD because most development work is handled upstream in the FreeBSD Ports tree. GhostBSD, as a downstream project, imports these upstream sources, merges any GhostBSD-specific changes, and then builds the packages from them. This means the GhostBSD maintainer works primarily with what upstream provides rather than maintaining the software from scratch.
When issues arise, support is available from the upstream XFCE team at xfce@FreeBSD.org. During my time maintaining Plasma, I regularly reached out to upstream maintainers for guidance, and this collaboration proved both effective and efficient.
The GhostBSD XFCE maintainer’s responsibilities focus on answering user questions, researching solutions, and liaising with upstream developers when needed. Since Eric manages the package build process, you will not be responsible for compiling or maintaining XFCE builds, which greatly reduces the workload compared to a FreeBSD XFCE maintainer.
Not all desktops are this light on maintenance. For example, Joe serves as both lead developer of Gershwin and GhostBSD’s Gershwin desktop maintainer, a role that requires significantly more direct development effort.
