PR: GNOME 2.0 Desktop and Developer Platform Released

OTTAWA, Canada–June 26, 2002–The GNOME Foundation today
released version 2.0 of the GNOME Desktop and Developer Platform at
the Ottawa Linux Symposium. With the inclusion of GNOME 2.0 by
leading Linux and Unix vendors later this year, users of GNOME can
look forward to an improved user environment for existing GNOME
applications, including a faster and more powerful Nautilus file
manager, features that are better organized and usability-tested,
dozens of useful utilities, applications and even games. Users and
administrators will also see a new, simplified configuration
system. Developers can look forward to more efficient application
development with stronger integration of GNOME APIs and the
advantages of GNOME’s component-based architecture.

“The GNOME 2.0 project is the culmination of a major effort
which had the dual objectives of dramatically improving developer
productivity and significantly enhancing the GNOME user
experience,” said Miguel de Icaza, president of the GNOME
Foundation and CTO and co-founder of Ximian, Inc. “The result is an
elegant, new multi-platform desktop environment for individual,
corporate and government users worldwide.”

GNOME is supported on a variety of platforms, including
GNU/Linux (more commonly referred to as Linux), Solaris Operating
Environment, HP-UX, Unix, BSD and Apple’s Darwin. The enhanced user
interface moves from a traditional X Window System interface to one
that is easy to use and familiar to users of other environments.
The user interface also boasts powerful features such as
high-quality smooth text rendering and first class
internationalization support, including support for bi-directional
text.

“Developing on the GNOME platform will take a leap forward with
the release of 2.0,” said Havoc Pennington, GNOME Foundation board
chair and technical lead for desktop engineering at Red Hat, Inc.
“The industrial-strength GTK+ 2.0 toolkit, combined with add-on
tools such as Glade, Python and our CORBA implementation make GNOME
the natural choice for developers on a variety of platforms.
GNOME’s component-based architecture makes it possible for
developers to use already existing tools, libraries and features,
cutting development time significantly.”

GNOME 2.0 has a host of advanced accessibility features for
users with disabilities and a built-in accessibility framework for
developers to meet Section 508 requirements. Developers of GNOME
2.0 have devoted thousands of man-hours to ensuring that GNOME will
be accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities. More
features and enhanced accessibility capabilities will be added
later this year.

GNOME 2.0 boasts some significant advances for developers,
including an enhanced GTK Toolkit, new libraries and widgets, as
well as the unparalleled advantages of GNOME’s component-based
architecture. GNOME’s libraries are available for use in any
application, without fees, under the terms of the GNU Lesser
General Public License.

GNOME 2.0 is the first of the GNOME 2.x series. Future releases
will bring more features to the core desktop, while adding GNOME 2
native versions of popular applications such as Evolution, Galeon,
Mozilla and Gnumeric.

Availability

Developers and users wishing to install the GNOME 2.0 Desktop
and Developer Platform may freely download the software at
www.gnome.org. The software includes the GNOME 2.0 desktop
interface, file manager, menus and utilities, as well as the
complete set of development tools and libraries.

GNOME 2.0 versions of popular applications will be available
later this year. GNOME 2.0 will be available later this year on the
Solaris Operating Environment, HP-UX, and Red Hat Linux, as well as
being distributed by Ximian and other Linux distributions as part
of their offerings.

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