"Two of the major components that will be part of the GNOME 3.0 desktop are GNOME Shell and Zeitgeist. The GNOME Shell redefines the GNOME desktop by taking over the responsibilities of the GNOME Panel in GNOME 2.xx along with the role of the window manager (and it also supports Clutter for making a nice, attractive user-experience). Zeitgeist in the simplest form is an event logging framework to help users find files and other user activity events in a structured way. Unfortunately, both Zeitgeist and the GNOME Shell are running behind schedule and will likely not be ready for GNOME 2.30.
"Red Hat's Owen Taylor provided a status update on GNOME Shell where he shares that the shell is usable, but only a beta quality release would potentially be ready before April. Messaging and application browsing are the two key areas still need to be tackled with the GNOME Shell followed by document browsing, accessibility, and internationalization work.
"Following Owen's message, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen chimed in with a Zeitgeist status update. Zeitgeist has made a lot of headway and already sports some impressive capabilities, but Mikkel feels that Zeitgeist by March could be possible, though it would be pushing it and cutting corners. Mikkel eludes to a later release being the better option, at least from his perspective."
