GNOME Community Celebrates 10 Years of Software Freedom, Innovation and Industry Adoption

[Jeff Waugh <jdub gnome org>]

GNOME Community Celebrates 10 Years of Software Freedom, Innovation and
Industry Adoption


Boston MA, USA -- August 15, 2007 -- A one month, world-wide celebration of
GNOME's tenth anniversary begins this week, culminating in mid-September
with Software Freedom Day and the release of GNOME 2.20. During the
celebration month, GNOME contributors will create a scrapbook wiki recording
their ten year history, and a commemorative cookery book with "Open Source"
recipes contributed by GNOME community members from around the world.


History and Achievements
========================

Since 1997, the GNOME project has grown from a handful of developers to a
contributor base of coders, documentors, translators, interface designers,
accessibility specialists, artists and testers numbering in the thousands.

As the leading user experience platform for Open Source and Free Software
operating systems, GNOME has received massive commercial support and uptake
among distributors such as Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems and Ubuntu, and
software vendors targeting those platforms such as Eclipse, Google, Mozilla
and VMWare.

In early 2007, the project launched the GNOME Mobile initiative, reflecting
growing interest in the GNOME platform for mobile and embedded systems such
as the OLPC XO, Nokia N800, OpenMoko Neo1973, the ACCESS Linux Platform and
numerous single-purpose mobile and embedded devices.

With such an immense community of individual and corporate contributors,
GNOME has become the driving force of Open Source and Free Software user
experience innovation, internationalisation, usability and accessibility,
bringing the benefits of Open Source and Free Software to users around the
world.


Words from our Founders
=======================

"In the last 10 years the GNOME community has not only reached our goal of
creating a superb desktop, the applications and developer tools that go with
it: Our software is now a core component of every Free Software operating
system available, and we are growing into increasingly important areas such
as mobile and embedded devices", said Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME
Project. "The GNOME community continues to thrive, innovate and come up with
new ideas to improve the Free Software user experience for everyone. I hope
that the next ten years will be as fun and fascinating as the first."

In August 1997, Miguel de Icaza founded the "GNOME Desktop project" as a
"free and complete set of user friendly applications and desktop tools [...]
based entirely on free software."


"Ten years ago, using only Free Software, you could not do graphic design
and illustration, you could not balance your checkbook, you could not
download pictures from your camera to the computer, you could not do phone
calls over the Internet, you could not create a spreadsheet with pie charts,
and you could not plug a printer or hard drive into your computer and expect
it to just work", recalled Federico Mena Quintero, an active GNOME developer
throughout its ten year history. "Today, I am happy to say that we have
reached and greatly exceeded GNOME's original goal. Thank you to all the
contributors who made the GNOME vision a reality. You have given us freedom,
good jobs -- and a priceless group of friends."

Last month, during GNOME's annual user and developer conference (GUADEC),
Federico Mena Quintero was the recipient of the GNOME Thank You Pants, an
annual award for Outstanding Service to the GNOME community. The audience
gave him a five minute standing ovation.


Words from our Advisory Board Partners
======================================

"The foundation for much of the ACCESS(tm) Linux Platform is open source
GNOME technology. ACCESS is proud to be a member of the GNOME Foundation's
Advisory Board, a founding member of the GNOME Mobile Initiative, and a
sponsor of GUADEC. The GNOME technologies have been enabling innovation for
an entire decade, and have become increasingly important in the mobile device
space. We're looking forward to the next ten years! Happy birthday, GNOME!" -
David 'Lefty' Schlesinger, Director of Open Source Technologies, ACCESS

"10 years of GNOME is some achievement. Everyone in the free software
movement owes a huge debt of gratitude to you guys and your work, as does
every user of your desktop. So big love from Ubuntu and here's to next 10."
- Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, Canonical

"Debian has been delivering GNOME releases since the very early versions,
and is proud to have seen the GNOME project grow and mature over the past 10
years. Being a key component of our Operating System, we look forward to
continuing to make GNOME innovations available to our users. Happy
birthday!" - Jordi Mallach, Debian

"As a founding member of the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board, IBM
congratulates the GNOME Project on their ten year anniversary. The GNOME
community should be proud of their open source innovations and efforts to
improve the free desktop user experience. The usability and accessibility of
GNOME enabling technologies has lead IBM to deliver Eclipse based products
that leverage GNOME components." - John Walicki, IBM Open Client Architect

"Imendio would not have existed if it were not for GNOME and many of our
developers have been here since the beginning. We are happy to have the
opportunity to join these celebrations and would like to extend our
congratulations to the entire project from all of us at Imendio!" - Mikael
Hallendal, CEO and co-founder, Imendio AB

"GNOME has demonstrated over the last ten years the power of free software,
delivering a desktop that all people around the world can use. Novell is
proud to be able to contribute to its continued success." - Ron Hovsepian,
President and CEO, Novell

"We'd like to congratulate everyone involved with the GNOME project, both
past and present, on the amazing achievements and progress the project has
made over it's first 10 years. We are honoured to have played a part in
taking GNOME beyond the desktop and bringing the GNOME experience to new
devices and users. We're very proud to be contributors to GNOME project, a
member of the GNOME Foundation's Advisory Board, a founding member of the
GNOME Mobile Initiative, and a sponsor of GUADEC. Here's to the next 10
years!" - Matthew Allum, CEO, OpenedHand

"Sun Microsystems congratulates the GNOME Foundation on ten great years. In
particular, Sun and the community members involvement in the accessibility
features of GNOME has been key to GNOME's ability to be used for the
Solaris(TM) Operating System and has been a key enabler to its use in other
commercial settings. We look forward to participating in the GNOME community
for a fruitful, accessible and Free tomorrow." - Simon Phipps, Chief Open
Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.


About the GNOME Foundation
==========================

Comprised 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 on the GNOME Foundation can be found at foundation.gnome.org.


Media Enquiries
===============

  GNOME Foundation Press Officer
  Jeff Waugh (Sydney, Australia: UTC+10)
  Email: gnome-press-contact gnome org
  Mobile: +61 423 989 818