Category: Press Release

Donations within the EU are now handled through the Wau Holland Foundation

The GNOME Foundation and the Wau Holland Foundation (Wau Holland Stiftung; WHS) have recently reached an agreement that will significantly improve the way donations to GNOME within the European Union (EU) are received and managed.

Prior to signing this agreement, the GNOME Foundation was able to receive donations through many payment methods (including wires, checks, and Paypal transfers or subscriptions), whether for one-time donations or recurrent (monthly) subscriptions as part of the Friends of GNOME program. However, donors needed to be residents of the United States for their contributions to be eligible for tax-deductibility, and wire transfers were prohibitively expensive from Europe.

The GNOME Foundation worked closely with the WHS to streamline the process for donations made within the European Union. Thanks to this agreement, Europeans donating to the GNOME Foundation through the WHS in support of GNOME will be eligible for tax receipts, allowing them to deduct donated amounts in their annual tax reports to the extent permissible by the law in their local jurisdiction.

The WHS has become a valuable ally to the GNOME Project, providing financial support, knowledge and infrastructure for strengthening GNOME’s ties with their European donors.

“Having an entity for collecting tax-deductible donations within the European Union is something the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors has been working on for a long time. I’m glad the current Board was able to sign the agreement that turned this dream into reality,” says Andrea Veri, Secretary of the GNOME Foundation’s Board of Directors.

The GNOME Foundation thanks the WHS for its continued support and help.

Useful links:

  • Ready to make a donation from within the EU? Look at the “Other ways to donate” page.
  • The GNOME Foundation Board of Directors values transparency, and thus made public the agreement between the GNOME Foundation and the WHS. Look here for a copy of the agreement.

GNOME 3.16 Released

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.

GNOME supports GPL compliance through VMware suit

The GNOME Foundation supports the Software Freedom Conservancy in its efforts to ensure compliance with the GNU General Public License (GPL) through Christoph Hellwig’s lawsuit against VMware. Like the Linux kernel, the GNOME Project chooses the GPL (as well as the LGPL) to license our software. Working in Free Software is a collaborative effort where all parties benefit, but this outcome is only realized if there is cooperation. Both the GPL and copyleft make this collaboration possible. The GPL is an important tool for safeguarding Free Software and when other avenues for cooperation have been exhausted litigation is the only recourse.

Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME; Program Renames to Outreachy

Software Freedom Conservancy and the GNOME Foundation together announce that the Free and Open Source Software Outreach Program is moving from GNOME to Conservancy. As Karen Sandler, Executive Director of Conservancy and co-organizer of the Outreach Program, announced in her keynote at FOSDEM this weekend, the program will be rebranding as part of the transition under the new name “Outreachy”.

Outreachy helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved by providing a supportive community for newcomers to contribute to throughout the year, and by offering focused internship opportunities twice a year with many free software organizations. To date, the program has had 214 interns with 35 different free software organizations, including the Linux Kernel, Wikimedia, GNOME, Mozilla, Twisted (a Conservancy member project), and OpenStack. Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Community Engagement Lead at Red Hat and co-organizer of the program said, “It’s amazing that the program we started four years ago with eight GNOME interns has grown to enable hundreds of women become established free software contributors across a broad spectrum of projects. I vividly remember the call in which Karen proposed the idea of inviting other organizations to participate, and I’m excited to continue working closely with her in growing the reach of the program.”

The GNOME Foundation, previous nonprofit home of the program, remains a core partner of Outreachy, providing infrastructure support. “The GNOME board is unified in its enthusiasm for Outreach to join Conservancy,” said Jean-François Fortin Tam, President of the GNOME Foundation. “We’re proud to have launched the program and seen it grow beyond our wildest expectations. We look forward to remaining a partner, supporting and participating in the program in its new home as it continues to grow.”

Over the next few months, Outreachy will complete its transition to Conservancy, the non-profit home of over 30 free and open source software projects. “Outreachy is a natural fit for Conservancy,” said Sandler. “Conservancy is organized to support many free software projects — and to promote software freedom in general. This program has become an essential way for free software projects to improve their communities. I am honored to keep working with Marina, Sarah Sharp and all of the other volunteers who keep Outreachy going.”

The next round of Outreachy internships will have an application deadline on March 24, 2015, and internship dates from May 25 to August 25. Coding, design, documentation and other projects will be available. Applicants will be asked to select a project with one of the participating organizations and collaborate with a mentor listed for that project to make a relevant contribution to the project during the application process. Accepted participants will work remotely, while being guided by their mentor, and will receive a $5,500 stipend.

About Outreachy

Outreachy is the successor of the Outreach Program for Women (OPW). OPW was inspired by Google Summer of Code and by how few women applied for it. The GNOME Foundation first started OPW with one round in 2006, and then resumed the effort in 2010 with rounds organized twice a year. In the May 2012 round, Software Freedom Conservancy joined OPW with one internship with the Twisted project. In the January 2013 round, many other free and open source organizations joined the program. For the May 2015 round, the program was renamed to Outreachy with the goal of expanding to engage people from various underrepresented groups and is transitioning to Conservancy as its organizational home.

This program is a welcoming link that connects talented and passionate newcomers with people working in free and open source software and guides them through their first contribution. Through Outreachy, participants learn how exciting and valuable work on software freedom can be, while helping us to build a more inclusive community. The organizational partners of the program are the GNOME Foundation, Red Hat and Software Freedom Conservancy.

About the GNOME Foundation

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.

About Software Freedom Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy is a public charity that promotes, improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source software projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software projects — including Git, Inkscape, Samba, Wine, Selenium, the Linux Compliance project, PyPy, and Sugar Labs — each supported by a dedicated community of volunteers, developers and users. Conservancy’s projects include some of the most widely used software systems in the world across many application areas, including educational software deployed in schools around the globe, embedded software systems deployed in most consumer electronic devices, distributed version control developer tools, integrated library services systems, and widely used graphics and art programs. A full list of Conservancy’s member projects is available. Conservancy provides these projects with the necessary infrastructure and not-for-profit support services to enable each project’s communities to focus on what they do best: creating innovative software and advancing computing for the public’s benefit.

GNOME 3.14 Released: A Refined Experience

Orinda, CA– The GNOME Project is proud to announce the release of GNOME 3.14 today. This milestone release in the GNOME 3 series brings exciting new features, bug fixes, and an enhanced application development platform. Major new features include automatic handling for captive portals, network-aware sharing, Google photos support, and touchscreen gestures.

Jeff Fortin Tam, GNOME Foundation President, said: “With multitouch and gestures support coming to GTK+, as well as maturing support for the next-generation Wayland display protocol, GNOME is paving the way for the future of the Free Software desktop and mobile ecosystem at large. It is great to see that applications have undergone, as always, a great amount of refinement; routing in GNOME Maps and improved PDF annotation features in Evince, for instance, are long-awaited features that I’m very eager to try out in GNOME 3.14.”

GNOME 3.14 highlights include:

  • New animations in the Activities Overview, along with new window animations.
  • Automatic handling for Wi-Fi hotspots that require you to login (so called “captive portals”).
  • A redesigned Weather application, which uses geolocation to show the weather for your current location.
  • Support for browsing Google pictures in Photos.
  • Improved touchscreen support, with multi-touch gestures for both the system and applications.

Developers can look forward to a new live inspector for GTK+ applications, enhanced CSS capabilties, major progress on Wayland adoption, and a significant update for GNOME’s Human Interface Guidelines.

Distributions and partners have welcomed the latest GNOME release. Scott Reeves, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Manager, said: “The GNOME 3 desktop provides a stable, feature rich experience for individual end users and for professional environments as well. GNOME 3 has reached a point of integration and polish to the extent that we will ship GNOME 3 as the desktop for our enterprise customers. We are invested in and contributing to the GNOME project and look forward to the additional functionality and improvements in GNOME 3.14 and beyond. We intend to continue including GNOME 3 in subsequent releases of our SUSE Linux Enterprise product.”

The news was also welcomed by Debian’s GNOME team. Jordi Mallach, one of the team’s members: “The Debian GNOME packagers are very happy to see another GNOME release which brings even more polish and new features to the already very reliable 3.x foundation. We’ve done our best to make sure Debian ‘jessie’ will ship with GNOME 3.14, as the improvements over previous releases will really make a difference for our next stable release. Congrats to the GNOME community!”

More information about the latest version, including details on all the new features, can be found in the release notes. A screenshot pack is also available, as well as a test image so you can try it for yourself.

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.

GNOME Foundation publish 2013 Annual Report

The GNOME foundation are pleased to publish the 2013 Annual Report . In the Report you can read about the foundation activities during 2013, some of the highlights include details about the continuous success of the OPW program and the many hackfests that took place during the last year.

“The 2013 Annual Report highlight how vibrant the GNOME project is and represents itself a real community effort.” Oliver Propst, Annual Report coordinator.

The foundation want to thank Friends of GNOME and advisory board members who support the foundation and its operations.

GUADEC starts today!

GUADEC, the main GNOME conference, is about to start in Strasbourg, located in the eastern part of France. It will gather users, developers, governments and businesses to talk about the status and future of the GNOME project between the July 25 and August 1.

“More than 10 years after the first GUADEC in Paris, the French GNOME community is very proud and excited to host GUADEC once again.”
– Christophe Fergeau, member of the local organizing team

Strasbourg_Cathedral

As always, the conference schedule features talks, hackfests, and social events for the attendees. Besides that, Matthew Garrett, Nathan Willis, and Jim Hall will deliver this year’s keynotes. They will discuss topics such as the place of free software in the automotive market, the future of the desktop, and usability aspects of GNOME.

GNOME.org will be updated during GUADEC, sharing the highlights of the conference with those who couldn’t be there. You can also follow what’s happening via on Twitter and Google+. More information about GUADEC 2014 is available at the official GUADEC website, including the conference’s schedule.

The GNOME Foundation wishes everyone a great conference! And a huge thank you to the local organizing team for all the time and effort they put into making this year’s GUADEC happen!

GNOME 3.12 Released with New Features for Users and Developers

Orinda, CA– The GNOME Project is proud to release GNOME 3.12 today. The next milestone release in the GNOME 3 series includes many new features, enhancements and updates, as well as new capabilities and APIs for application developers. The new version continues to improve the GNOME 3 user experience and includes many small bug fixes and enhancements.

Speaking on behalf of the GNOME Release Team, Matthias Clasen said “This is an exciting release for GNOME, and brings many new features and improvements, including app folders, enhanced system status and high-resolution display support.” He also thanked the GNOME community for their work on the release, saying that “This six months’ effort wouldn’t have been possible without the whole GNOME community, made of contributors and friends from all around the world”.

The latest GNOME release has been met with anticipation by the project’s partners. Christian Schaller, manager of Red Hat’s Desktop Team, said: “Red Hat is very pleased to see the GNOME community continuing to push the GNU/Linux desktop forward. We are looking forward to the innovations in GNOME 3.12 arriving in future versions of Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.”

GNOME 3 is already in use by many companies who will benefit from the improvements in the new release. Arun S A G, Software Development Engineer at Yahoo Inc said “GNOME is the desktop environment of choice for many Yahoo developers. It provides a stable foundation for GNU/Linux power users to get things done, from reading emails to writing code.”

Seth Schoen, Senior Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, also commented, “EFF is proud to use GNOME. Personally, I look forward to checking out the new features and fixes in the release.”

Major new features for this release include a significant update to the experience for finding and installing applications, as well as major facelifts for the Videos and gedit applications. Those who have high resolution displays will benefit from greater support, and users will experience better start up times as well as more efficient resource usage. They will also be able to quickly organize their applications with the new application folders feature.

Other highlights for GNOME 3.12 include:

  • A big update to the GNOME web browser, with improved performance and UI enhancements.
  • Three new preview applications – Logs, Sound Recorder, and Polari – a new IRC client for GNOME.
  • Photos has been updated with new Facebook integration.
  • A new search feature for Terminals.
  • Integrated Google Cloud Print support.
  • A revamped Initial Setup Assistant.
  • The use of the new popovers widget in a number of core applications.

3.12 is a major release for developers, and comes with a host of new APIs and widgets. New GTK+ user interface widgets include GtkPopover, GtkActionBar and GtkFlowBox, and provide exciting new possibilities for application developers. A new API provides integrated support for desktop notifications. 3.12 also includes a powerful new process launching API. Finally, much of GNOME’s developer documentation has been improved for 3.12, with enhancements to structure, formatting and content. For our BSD friends, GNOME has enhanced portability, with over 150 FreeBSD issues fixed and test builds running regularly. Work for other operating systems is ongoing.

More details about GNOME 3.12 can be found in the release notes. A pack of screenshots is also available.

The GNOME Foundation thanks all of the contributors for their hard work, perseverance, and vision in this release.

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 the most popular environment 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 works to promote software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experiences.

GNOME Foundation Announces GNOME 3.10

Orinda, CA– The GNOME Project is proud to release GNOME 3.10 today. The latest milestone release in the GNOME 3 series includes many new features, applications and bug fixes, as well as enhancements and updates to many existing applications.

“Days before the GNU System’s 30th birthday, the GNOME 3.10 release exemplifies what GNU is about — technical and ethical excellence,” said John Sullivan, Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation. “The Free Software Foundation is proud to showcase the GNOME community’s work when talking to potential new free software users, and as GNOME users ourselves, we’re very thankful for these new improvements.”

Highlights for GNOME 3.10 include:

  • Experimental Wayland support
  • A reworked system status area, which gives a more focused overview of your system.
  • Three new applications (which are technology previews): Maps, Music and Software.
  • Three new additions to the core set of GNOME applications: Notes, Photos and Weather.
  • ‟Software“, which provides an easy way to browse and install applications.
  • New geolocation features, such as automatic time zones and world clocks.
  • The ability to set a custom image on the lock screen.
  • High-resolution display support

For developers, there are new GTK widgets, a geo-location framework that will allow location aware applications, and the ability to define composite widgets using XML.

“GNOME has pioneered the development and support of code that is now core infrastructure for many diverse Free desktops, including DBus, accessibility support and Network Manager,” said Matthew Garrett, Linux kernel developer and security expert. “As a result, it’s unsurprising that GNOME is the first to ship with support for a next-generation display server in the form of Wayland. GNOME’s commitment to improving the underlying platform is vital to the future of Free Software and provides a service to the entire community.”

Users will see many changes in this release which allows greater customization than in previous releases, such as the ability to customize the background of the lock screen. Other changes include allowing app browsing using pagination instead of scrolling, fine scrolling in applications with precise movements, an enhanced and redesigned login screen, and improvements to user settings. Finally, the system status menu has been redesigned by consolidating many of the smaller menus including wifi, bluetooth, sound, brightness and power into a single drop-down menu providing quick easy access to all.

A new Software application will provide a GNOME centric consistent interface to installing and maintaining software regardless of the distribution you will use.  In the future, Software will be improved to include comments and ratings and other exciting developments to help choose the best software for your tasks.

For those using new hardware like the Chrombook Pixel, support for high resolution displays will ensure a consistent look independent of the resolution.

Allan Day, who was recognized at GUADEC as 2013’s most distingushed contributor said, “GNOME 3.10 is a significant upgrade for our users, and developers will benefit from new features in the application development platform. Our contributors did an incredible job and have created a really exciting release.”

The GNOME Foundation thanks all of the contributors for their hard work, perseverance, and vision in this release.

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 the most popular environment 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 works to promote software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experiences.

GUADEC 2013 Starting Now!

The GNOME Foundation, in collaboration the Brno University of Technology, Liberix, and Linux v Brně, presents the 2013 edition of the annual GUADEC Conference in Brno, Czech Republic from August 1st to 8th. GUADEC—the GNOME Users and Developers European Conference—is an international forum for research and development around the Free and Open Source Software project GNOME. 

GUADEC will unite GNOME users and developers for an opportunity to discuss the main developments in GNOME technology and the future of open source software. The four conference days feature 40 formal talks, 3 keynotes and a number of lightning talk sessions followed by 4 days of working events and hacking sessions. The conference days will feature GNOME contributors addressing topics in User Experience, Developer Experience and Community Outreach as well as keynote speakers Ethan Lee, Matt Dalio, Cathy Malmrose, and the GNOME Board of Directors.

“GUADEC has become an essential event for the GNOME community, providing a venue for critical issues to be discussed and new community members to integrate fully,” said Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation.

GUADEC 2013 will be hosted in Brno, the second largest city of the Czech Republic and capital of the region of Moravia. Brno, a city of about 400,000 is a bustling university town and home to major offices of a range of of technology companies including IBM, Motorola, Honeywell and  Red Hat.

GUADEC 2013 is organized in collaboration with Brno University of Technology, Liberix, and Linux v Brně. The conference has received generous sponsorship from Google, Redhat, Ubuntu, Collabora and Igalia.

8 days, 3 Keynotes, 80 presentations

GUADEC 2013 will consist of 8 days, including over 80 presentations, lighting talks, workshops and Birds of a Feather hackfests.

Expected highlights of the conference include:
– Technological innovations in GNOME shell, the desktop environment, web browser, document management, e-mail service, and cloud integration
– Community outreach to new contributors in the Outreach Program for Women, hackerspaces, social media and greater FLOSS community
– Advances in graphics and multimedia applications, including high resolution display, animation and video
– Approaches to maintaining user privacy and security for application developers
– Improved accessibility in user experience in GNOME technology
– Solutions to testing in bug tracking and testing online services

Three keynotes and a presentation by the Board of Directors fill out the schedule.

Ethan Lee (@flibitijibibo) is a Linux game developer who has worked on porting games such as Super Hexagon and Proteus to Linux and is currently working on developing FEZ for Linux. 

Cathy Malmrose founded ZaReason, which distributes computers built with open hardware and preloaded with Linux.

Matt Dalio is the CEO of Endless Mobile, building smartphone software for the needs of the developing world, and the founder of the China Care Foundation.

For more information about GUADEC and the full program, please visit www.guadec.org

Follow our updates via identi.ca and Twitter at @guadec (#GUADEC2013)

About GUADEC

 

GUADEC (gwädek gwaw-deck) is the primary congress for GNOME users, developers, foundation leaders, individuals, governments and businesses worldwide. The conference is held annually in cities around Europe and brings attendees together to share their experiences and ideas for developing, using and deploying GNOME technologies. 

GUADEC attracts more than 300 key software developers, press, users, businesses and government representatives each year. Presentations are given by leaders, spokespeople, volunteers and motivated developers on a range of topics including the future directions of the GNOME Project, Unix, GNU/Linux, Free and Open Source software, development techniques, cutting edge features and new ideas in culture and technology. 

About GNOME and the GNOME Foundation

GNOME is an international project that works to create a free, open, easy-to-use computer environment with first-class internationalization and accessibility. The GNOME Project was started in 1997 by two university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena. Now, GNOME is an international project that works to create a free, open, easy to use computer environment with first­ class internationalization and accessibility. Built entirely from software approved as free by the Free Software Foundation, GNOME provides all of the common tools users expect from a modern computing environment: web browsers, file managers, multimedia players, e-mail applications, group-ware and games. 

Used by millions of people across the world, GNOME is a popular desktop environment for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. The desktop has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments, and the project’s developer technologies are utilized by a large number of popular mobile device manufacturers. GNOME is the result of collaboration between those companies and volunteers from the public who are dedicated to creating quality free software.

GNOME components form the basic desktop environments on many operating systems, e.g., Oracle’s Solaris, Fedora, Canonical’s Ubuntu, SUSE, Debian and Linux Mint. GNOME technologies have been adopted for consumer and vertical market products, like: Amazon Kindle ebook readers; TiVo digital video recorders; Nokia Internet Tablets and the N900 mobile phone; TouchTunes digital jukeboxes and GPS navigation devices such as Garmin’s and TomTom’s devices. 

Accessibility. GNOME, highlighted for ideals encompassing love, sharing and respecting standards, meets and exceeds accessibility requirements that allow all users, including those with disabilities, to interact with the most modern computer technologies. 
Privacy. GNOME is an alternative to proprietary software systems and is increasingly investing and growing alongside companies and administrations that favor the freedom and privacy of users.

The GNOME Foundation is a US non-profit organization focused on the advancement of GNOME and improving access to technology for all, regardless of geographic location or socio-economic class. It is comprised of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading companies. The Foundation is a member directed 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal support to the GNOME project. The GNOME Foundation supports the pursuit of software freedom through the innovative, accessible and beautiful user experience created by GNOME contributors around the world. 

Media Enquiries

Karen Sandler

GNOME Foundation 
Executive Director

E-mail: gnome-press-contact@gnome.org

Phone: +1-617-206-3947

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.