Permanent Revolution

10 years ago today was April 6, 2011.

Windows XP was still everywhere. Smartphones were tiny, and not everyone had one yet. New operating systems were coming out left and right. Android phones had physical buttons, and webOS seemed to have a bright future. There was general agreement that the internet would bring about a better world, if only we could give everyone unrestricted access to it.

This was the world into which GNOME 3.0 was released.

I can’t speak to what it was like inside the project back then, this is all way before my time. I was still in high school, and though I wasn’t personally contributing to any free software projects yet, I remember it being a very exciting moment.

Screenshot of the GNOME 3.0 live ISO with Settings, Gedit, Calculator, and Evince Screenshot of the GNOME 3.0 live ISO showing Settings, Gedit, Calculator, and Evince in the overview

3.0 was a turning point. It was a clear sign that we’d not only caught up to, but confidently overtaken the proprietary desktops. It was the promise that everything old and crufty about computing could be overcome and replaced with something better.

As an aspiring designer and free software activist it was incredibly inspiring to me personally, and I know I’m not alone in that. There’s an entire generation of us who are here because of GNOME 3, and are proud to continue working in that tradition.

Here’s to permanent revolution. Here’s to the hundreds who worked on GNOME 3.

3 thoughts on “Permanent Revolution”

  1. I’m just a user, not a contributor, but you are so right on «There’s an entire generation of us who are here because of GNOME 3» even with a lot of problems with the drivers in the linux kernel for laptop machines, GNOME 3 it’s the reason I can’t go with any other operative system, and now with GNOME 40 I reach the point that I really enjoy to use my laptop

  2. I switched to Linux just a few years ago (I wish I had done it sooner), tried Gnome, Xfce, KDE, Budgie, Openbox, Lumina, I kept coming back to Gnome, which is fast and seamless yet beautiful. You are right, Gnome is the best.

  3. I’m an aspiring free software developer in high school right now, and GNOME is what made me love the FreeDesktop and Linux

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