[fdn-ann] second draft of announcements...

[Greg Corrin <gcorrin eazel com>]

All,
I've tried to consolidate all the comments I received on the first
draft. please let me know if I missed any.
thanks -

INDUSTRY LEADERS AND THE GNOME AND LINUX COMMUNITIES
UNIFY TO CREATE THE GNOME FOUNDATION

~ Developers and Corporations Join to Advance GNOME Desktop and
Application
Framework as the Leading Open Source Desktop Environment ~

LinuxWorld Expo, San Jose, CA -- August 15, 2000 --The GNOME project
today announced the creation of the GNOME Foundation.  In addition,
industry leaders including Compaq, Eazel, Gnumatic, Helix Code, Henzai,
IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and VA Linux have announced their support
for the foundation, with the goal of advancing the availability of this
easy-to-use,
open source, desktop environment.

The foundation will help set the technical direction of the GNOME
project, offer a forum for industry leaders to contribute to GNOME, and
promote the broad adoption of GNOME. The Bonobo component project, GTK
toolkit development, Pango internationalization, and GNOME Office
integration and other projects with be embraced under the GNOME
organization.

In a related announcement, the GNOME Steering Committee today announced
plans
to integrate Open Office, Sun's open source productivity suite better
known as
StarOffice, with the GNOME Office suite.  By combining the two products,
GNOME users will have access to a powerful office suite that will be
fully compatible with the
leading office productivity suites.

The GNOME project has built a complete free and easy-to-use open
platform desktop
environment for the marketplace, as well as a powerful application
framework for software developers.  GNOME runs on Linux and other Unix
and Unix-like operating
systems.  The GNOME Foundation will provide organizational and financial
support for GNOME and related open source software projects. The
foundation will also ensure the continuity of development for the Linux
desktop beyond the participation of individual volunteers and provide a
vehicle for contributions of financial support and intellectual
property. The foundation's board of directors will be elected by the
hundreds of volunteer developers from all over the world who are
contributing to the GNOME project.

GNOME Advisory Board
The GNOME project also announced the creation of an Advisory Board which

will allow corporate partners to support GNOME. Initial members of the
Advisory Board include Compaq, Eazel, Gnumatic, Helix Code, Henzai, IBM,
Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and VA Linux.

"Much like the Apache Project before it, GNOME is benefiting from the
interest of both developers and commercial entities," said Mike Boich,
CEO and co-founder
of Eazel. "The GNOME Foundation can only help to accelerate that trend.
Eazel is delighted to be a member of the Foundation and to be building
software on the GNOME platform."

"About three ago, Red Hat created the Red Hat Advanced Development Lab
(RHAD Lab) to support open source software on the desktop and became the
first commercial company to make a contribution to GNOME development,"
said Bob Young, Chairman and co-founder of Red Hat. "With the formation
of the GNOME Foundation, GNOME is truly coming of age in terms of market
momentum.  We are excited about the
opportunities for GNOME and open source, and we look forward to working
with the new members to the GNOME community, like Eazel, Helix, Sun
Microsystems and others, as they bring applications and technology to
the GNOME desktop environment."

"Sun is thrilled to be joining the GNOME Foundation and we plan to adopt
GNOME as the future desktop for Solaris," said Marco Boerries, vice
president and general manager of webtop and application software at Sun
Microsystems, Inc.  "We are committed to
contributing significant engineering resources to the GNOME project and
will work closely with the other GNOME members to ensure continued
reliability and quality."

About the GNOME Foundation
The GNOME Foundation provides organizational, financial and legal
support to the GNOME project. The foundation will help determine the
vision and roadmap
for GNOME. It will also assist in creating technical standards,
coordinate GNOME releases, and determine which software projects are
part of GNOME. The foundation will make public statements and administer
funds on behalf of the GNOME
project. The Foundation will be incorporated as a membership-based,
not-for-profit corporation. You are invited to participate in the GNOME
Foundation. We welcome contributions in many forms.  Our membership
consists of those individuals who have
demonstrated a commitment to the development of GNOME through
participation in the development, documentation and promotion of GNOME.
The Advisory
Board provides a vehicle for organizations and companies to communicate
with the GNOME community and support GNOME. Additional information is
available at www.gnome.org.