FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SAN JOSE, CA – Today at the Linux World Conference, the GNOME
Project announced the release of the GNU Network Object Model
Environment (GNOME) version 1.0. GNOME is an integrated desktop
environment designed to run on UNIX-like systems, including
Linux-based systems.
“GNOME is a graphical user interface (GUI) that
combines ease of use with the flexibility and reliability of
GNU/Linux. We’re very excited about GNOME and what it will mean for
the future of GNU/Linux computing,” said Miguel de Icaza, GNOME
project coordinator.
The features of GNOME are designed to result in an environment in
which users can easily perform common desktop tasks. Users will
appreciate the complete configurability of the GNOME desktop, which
gives them the ability to customize their working environment for
their personal needs and tastes. GNOME is also fully
internationalized. Its built-in support for more than 17 languages
allows each user to experience GNOME in their native language.
Additionally it makes efficient use of today’s technologies, such
as CORBA and drag-and-drop, to ensure maximum interoperability with
existing software.
Developers creating GNOME programs will appreciate features such
as the anti-aliased canvas display system, hypertext help, session
management, and a high-performance CORBA subsystem that allow them
to write user- friendly programs with minimum development time.
Because GNOME supports many programming languages, including Ada,
C, C++, Objective-C, TOM, Perl, Python, Guile, developers are able
to write GNOME programs in their language of choice.
Programmers from around the world have been working on GNOME for
almost two years. The vast majority of the current group of some
250 developers, including Mr. de Icaza, are volunteers who donate
their time to the cause of Free Software. They have received
substantial additional help from Red Hat Advanced Development Labs,
and from many people whose ideas, tips and bug reports have played
an important role in the success of the GNOME project so far.
“The Free Software Movement is a very dynamic one.
GNOME is not only providing a desktop for end-users, it is laying
down a foundation for standardizing a number of issues that have
been ignored for a long time by the Unix community,” Mr. de Icaza
noted.
The Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity formed in 1985,
is dedicated to give people the right and the freedom to use, copy,
modify, and redistribute computer programs. It does so by
protecting these rights through the GNU General Public License. The
aim is to give people the freedom to cooperate with other computer
users.
“GNOME is a giant step towards achieving the Free
Software Foundation’s goals of providing a whole spectrum of
software for everyone from experts to end-users. We’re excited
about the direction that GNOME will take us in.” Richard Stallman,
Founder and President of the Free Software Foundation said. ” ‘Free
Software’ is a matter of liberty not price. It includes the freedom
to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve any software
distributed under the FSF’s General Public License. We hope that
this will continue to create a vigorous environment for programmers
and users to create and use GNU/Linux and GNOME programs. Very soon
we’ll see a wide range of GNOME-based applications, to answer the
different needs of computer users.”
Red Hat Advanced Development Labs (RHAD Labs) was established as an
independent development group to work on the usability of the
GNU/Linux operating system. RHAD Labs’ charter is to work with the
free software development community to develop a best of breed
graphical computer environment on GNU/Linux.
GNOME is designed to be portable to any modern UNIX system.
Currently, it runs on Linux systems, BSD variants, Solaris, HP-UX,
and Digital Unix. In the future, it will be included in Red Hat
Linux, and other Linux distributions such as Debian GNU/Linux and
SuSE Linux.
GNOME 1.0 is available for free download via http://www.gnome.org/getting-gnome-1.0.shtml
and several other mirror sites.
For more information on the GNOME project, please contact
webmaster@gnome.org, or
visit http://www.gnome.org/.