Orinda, CA– The GNOME Project is proud to announce the release of GNOME 3.16 today, the result of six months work, which includes 33,525 changes by 1043 authors. GNOME 3.16 brings a brand new notification system in response to the feedback of enthusiastic GNOME users. GNOME 3’s visuals have also received a refresh, and its application suite has been updated, with improvements to Files, Music, Photos, Maps and more.
Javier Jardón, senior GNOME Release Team member, commented: “A lot of of work has been put in over the past 6 months. It’s great to see the fantastic results of our hard work, and it goes without saying that this could not be possible without all the effort from great the GNOME community! I definitely think this is the best GNOME release yet.”
Major additions have also been made to the GNOME developer experience: GTK+ support for OpenGL allows GTK+ apps to support 3D natively, a new GLib reference counting feature will help with debugging, and GTK+ Inspector has also had a major update. Additionally, this release includes a preview of the crowdfunded GNOME IDE, called Builder.
Christian Hergert, Builder’s lead developer, said: “I’m proud to have a preview release of Builder to ship with GNOME 3.16. This release of GNOME is bursting with new ideas and fresh looks. Builder is no different. Quality software is about iteration and we start that journey today.”
Other improvements in GNOME 3.16 include:
- Three new preview applications – Calendar, Books, and Characters.
- Maps has had numerous improvements, including FourSquare integration.
- Improved grid and list views in Files.
- GNOME’s Image Viewer application has been redesigned.
- Music and Photos have received performance enhancements.
Responding to the release, Matthew Miller, Fedora Project Leader, stated: “I want a Linux desktop which lets me focus on my work without distraction, and GNOME is perfect for that, while having great engineering and sophisticated, modern plumbing underneath. This makes it a great basis for Fedora Workstation, and we’re excited to showcase GNOME 3.16 in our upcoming Fedora 22 release.”
The GNOME user and developer experiences include many other improvements, which can be found in the release notes. A video tour is also available, as well as a screenshot pack.
GNOME 3.16 will be available to install via popular distributions in due course. The GNOME Foundation thanks all of the contributors for their hard work during this release cycle and all of its sponsors for their support.
About GNOME
GNOME was started in 1997 by two then-university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely successful enterprise. Used by millions of people around the world, it is one of the most popular environments for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. GNOME’s software has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments.
The GNOME community is made up of hundreds of contributors from all over the world, many of whom are volunteers. This community is supported by the GNOME Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal assistance. The Foundation is a democratic institution that is directed by its members, who are all active GNOME contributors. GNOME and its Foundation work to promote software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experiences.