GROTON, Mass., April 6, 2011 — Today, the GNOME Desktop project released GNOME 3.0, its most significant redesign of the computer experience in nine years. A revolutionary new user interface and new features for developers make this a historic moment for the free and open source desktop.
The new GNOME Shell reimagines the UI for the next generation of the desktop. This innovative interface helps users focus on tasks while minimizing distractions such as notifications and background windows.
Jon McCann, one of GNOME Shell's designers: "With any luck you will feel more focused, aware, effective, capable, respected, delighted, and at ease." GNOME Shell aims to "help us cope with modern life in a busy world. Help us connect, stay on track, feel at ease and in control." GNOME Shell, he says, will keep users "informed without being disrupted."
GNOME's new development platform includes a new API and improvements in search, display backend, user messaging, system settings, and streamlined libraries. GNOME 2 applications will continue to work in the new environment without modification, letting developers move to the GNOME 3 environment at their own pace. The GNOME 3 release notes include further details.
Matt Zimmerman, Canonical's Ubuntu CTO: "In the face of constant change, both in software technology itself and in people's attitudes toward it, long-term software projects need to reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant. I'm encouraged to see the GNOME community taking up this challenge, responding to the evolving needs of users and questioning the status quo."
Miguel de Icaza, GNOME co-founder: "GNOME continues to innovate in the desktop space. The new GNOME Shell is an entire new user experience that was designed from the ground up to improve the usability of the desktop and giving both designers and developers a quick way to improve the desktop and adapt the user interface to new needs. By tightly integrating Javascript with the GNOME platform, designers were able to create and quickly iterate on creating an interface that is both pleasant and exciting to use. I could not be happier with the results."
In partnership with Novell, Red Hat, other distributors, schools and governments, and user groups, GNOME 3 will reach millions of users around the world. Over 3500 people, including employees from 106 companies, have contributed to the project's code repositories.
GNOME fans have planned over 100 launch parties around the world. Users can download GNOME 3 from http://gnome3.org to try it immediately, or wait for distributions to carry it soon.
The GNOME Project 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. It is the most 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 in a large number of popular mobile devices. For further information, contact the GNOME press team: Email.
Contact:
Sumana Harihareswara
617-206-3947
Email
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