MandrakeSoft joins the GNOME Foundation
San Francisco - November 14, 2000 - MandrakeSoft today
announced that it is joining the Advisory Board of the GNOME
Foundation, which aims to promote the GNOME graphical
desktop. Linux-Mandrake operating system has included GNOME
since early versions and the GNOME has recently become the
desktop of choice for many Linux-Mandrake users.
"We are delighted that MandrakeSoft is joining the
Foundation's Advisory Board and extending its commitment to
GNOME ", said Miguel De Icaza, co-founder of GNOME.
"MandrakeSoft's market leadership role in the European Linux
market and its strong retail presence in the US will allow
GNOME to reach a much broader audience worldwide."
MandrakeSoft has long recognized the great value offered by
the GNOME environment and its ability to attract new users
from the Windows world. MandrakeSoft also credits the
numerous innovations introduced by the GNOME project as one
of the key reasons for the worldwide success of Linux and
the Open Source model.
"MandrakeSoft has always been committed to support Free
Software and Linux in particular. Our entrance in the GNOME
Foundation proves once again our commitment to killer
free-software projects", said Gaël Duval - VP & Co-Founder
of MandrakeSoft.
MandrakeSoft affirms its commitment to the Foundation and to
GNOME's bright future by also announcing to financially
sponsor several GNOME developers so that they may focus on
developing GNOME Office/OpenOffice for the benefit of the
entire community.
In a related announcement, Borland-Inprise today announced
that it, too, will be joining the GNOME Foundation's
Advisory Board.
About MandrakeSoft
MandrakeSoft publishes the Linux-Mandrake operating system,
based on open-source development (which provides free access
to source code published in accordance with a General Public
License, or GPL). Several hundred developers throughout the
world contribute to the constant improvement of the product
directly over the Internet. This international developer
community has given Linux-Mandrake a product that is
available in over 40 languages.
Linux-Mandrake is a very complete system with a choice of
several powerful, pre-configured graphic interfaces (notably
the leaders KDE and GNOME), as well as more than 2,300
applications including Netscape Communicator, the StarOffice
suite, and the Apache Web server.
In a testament to its success, MandrakeSoft received the
awards for "Best Product of the Year" and "Best
Linux-Distribution/Server" at LinuxWorld Expo 99, as well
as the PC Answers Platinum Award in April 2000 and the Linux
Magazine Editor's Choice Award in September 2000. The
company has signed a strategic partnership with the American
publisher Macmillan USA and held the number one spot in
Linux North American sales for Macmillan USA in July &
August 2000 (Source : PC Data).
"Born on the Internet", MandrakeSoft established
headquarters in Pasadena (U.S.) and Paris (Europe).
Please visit the web site, http://www.linux-mandrake.com for more
information.
About GNOME and the GNOME Foundation
The GNOME project has built a completely free and
easy-to-use desktop environment, as well as a powerful
application framework for software developers on Linux and
other Unix-like operating systems. GNOME is part of the
GNU project, an effort to build a completely free Unix-like
operating system better known as GNU/Linux or Linux.
The GNOME Foundation will provide organizational, financial
and legal support to the GNOME project, and help determine
its vision and roadmap. The Foundation is governed by a
board of directors elected by the members of the foundation:
individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to the
development of GNOME through participation in the
development, documentation and promotion of GNOME. An
Advisory Board provides a vehicle for organizations and
companies to communicate with the GNOME community and
support GNOME.
Advisory Board members include Hewlett Packard, IBM, Red
Hat, Sun Microsystems, Turbo Linux and other leading
technology companies.
Additional information is available at
http://www.gnome.org/. You are invited to participate in
GNOME, which provides many opportunities for individuals and
companies to contribute.
Last modified: Tue Jun 13 14:38:01 CEST 2000
