GNOME Project Updates Free Desktop with 2.30 Release

["Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb zonker net>]

BOSTON, Mass -- March 31, 2010 -- The GNOME Project is proud to
announce GNOME 2.30, the latest stable release of the popular Free
Software desktop environment and applications suite. GNOME 2.30 builds
on previous GNOME releases and brings hundreds of improvements for
users and developers, including enhancements for user management, Web
browsing, support for Facebook chat, and new productivity features.

GNOME contributors have added improvements across the board for GNOME
2.30 in accessibility, productivity applications, Web browsing,
instant messaging, and games. This release includes hundreds of new
features, enhancements, and improvements over the GNOME 2.28 release
from September 2009.

"I'm really pleased with all of the updates in GNOME 2.30," said
Stormy Peters, GNOME Executive Director. "I'm excited that I can
automatically sync my Tomboy notes between my desktop and laptop
computer, easily configure Facebook chat in Empathy instant messenger,
and do more with PDFs in Evince. GNOME 2.30 provides everything I need
for work and play."

The GNOME Project thrives by consistently improving on previous
releases while retaining compatibility and delivering a user-friendly
desktop environment and applications twice a year. GNOME combines a
commitment to Free Software with a focus on usability and working well
with downstream projects to deliver a high-quality suite of free
software.

"GNOME's commitment to usability, quality and predictable delivery is
a key contributor to Ubuntu's success," said Mark Shuttleworth,
founder of Canonical. "GNOME sets the standard for a diverse and
vibrant community that shares the goal of a Free desktop that is both
familiar to users from any computing background, and also innovative.
Congratulations to the project on this significant release."

The 2.30 release contains significant user-visible improvements,
adding numerous platform improvements for developers, and builds
towards the upcoming GNOME 3.0 release with a preview of the
revolutionary GNOME Shell. GNOME Shell, which will replace the
existing GNOME Panel, changes the way users will interact with the
desktop.

"I'd like to congratulate the GNOME project on a state of the art
GNOME 2.30 desktop release," said Andreas Jaeger, program manager of
openSUSE for Novell. "I'm glad that we are able to include it in our
next release and also have it available for easy installation on
openSUSE 11.2. We'll be providing packages via the openSUSE Build
Service to allow users to easily test drive the upcoming GNOME 3.0
features like the GNOME Shell."

GNOME 2.30 is immediately available via GNOME Live Media, and will
soon be available from the many vendors and projects that support
GNOME.

"The GNOME environment and platform have been a central part of
Fedora's releases since our earliest days. Over that time, GNOME has
matured into a vital and healthy project that consistently combines
simple, beautiful, user-friendly features and a robust platform for
community-driven development," said Paul Frields, Fedora Project
Leader. "It's a point of great pride that Fedora community members
including Red Hat's Desktop engineering team have contributed
significantly to GNOME.  I'm excited that we're already involved in
planning for the next generation of desktop technologies, including
GNOME, that will help us build the free software desktop of the
future."

GNOME is also committed to delivering a Free desktop for all users,
and translations and Accessibility work is an important part of the
GNOME 2.30 release. This release includes a number of improvements in
GNOME's Orca Screen Reader that improve performance and use on
netbooks, and platform improvements to ready GNOME's Accessibility
interface for GNOME 3.0. The 2.30 release also delivers comprehensive
support for more than 50 languages, and partial support for many
others.

"I'm extremely excited with the number of different languages
currently supported by GNOME," said Og Maciel, Foresight Linux
Community Manager. "If there is one single feat about GNOME 2.30 that
I'm proud of is the great work done by the Asturian and Shavian
translation teams! We now have more than 50 different languages with
at least 80% of the user interface translated, which means that more
people will be able to enjoy their favorite desktop environment in
their native tongue!"

About GNOME and the GNOME Foundation

GNOME is a Free Software project whose goal is to develop a complete,
accessible and easy to use desktop for Linux and Unix-based operating
systems. GNOME also includes a complete development environment to
create new applications. It is released twice a year on a regular
schedule.

The GNOME desktop is used by millions of people around the world.
GNOME is a standard part of all leading GNU/Linux and Unix
distributions, and is popular with both large existing corporate
deployments and millions of small business and home users worldwide.

Composed of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading
companies, the GNOME Foundation is an organization committed to
supporting the advancement of GNOME. The Foundation is a member
directed, non-profit organization that provides financial,
organizational and legal support to the GNOME project and helps
determine its vision and roadmap.

More information about GNOME and the GNOME Foundation can be found at
www.gnome.org and foundation.gnome.org.

Media Enquiries:

GNOME Foundation Executive Director Stormy Peters Email:
gnome-press-contact gnome org Phone: +1-617-206-3947


-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb zonker net>
About: http://www.dissociatedpress.net/about/