LinuxWorld — (press release) — The GNOME project today announced five major initiatives aimed at delivering an industry-wide open user environment. These initiatives are:

• To establish the GNOME user environment as the unifying desktop for the Linux and Unix communities.
  
• Adoption of OpenOffice.org technologies for integration into GNOME.
  
• Integration of the Mozilla browser technology… into GNOME.
  
• Industry leaders to work together to improve the quality, reliability and accessibility of the GNOME user environment around the world.
  
• Establishment of the GNOME framework as the standard for next generation Internet access devices.

“GNOME is receiving a tremendous boost in terms of support, backing and commitment for contribution and improvements,” said Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME project. “GNOME is now well positioned to be the next generation user environment, uniting the existing Linux and UNIX communities. We are building an alternative environment based on free software and open principles. By leveraging other open technologies we are able to maintain our focus on making the most attractive development environment.”

GNOME Adoption on Linux and Unix

GNOME has achieved significant acceptance from the Linux and Unix communities. Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard are announcing their adoption of GNOME as the future default user environment for Solaris and HP-UX, respectively. The GNOME user environment is the default for Red Hat, TurboLinux and several other leading Linux distributions and is available for all major Linux distributions. As a result, this initiative will unify many variations of Unix under a single user environment. It creates a cost-effective framework based on open standards and open source that will enable developers to write solutions for many different platforms, while competing on implementations.

“The advent of a single user environment will provide enormous benefits to developers, end users and the industry as a whole,” said Bill Claybrook of Aberdeen Group. “By reducing development, deployment and training costs this project will create a competitive, open standards based alternative.”

A Complete End-user Environment

Based on StarOffice, an alternative competitive office productivity suite available on multiple platforms and the leading productivity suite for Linux, OpenOffice.org is the industry initiative to deliver open office productivity applications and its technologies are being adopted by the GNOME project for integration into the system. OpenOffice.org will leverage the Bonobo component model to create a number of object components, allowing these components to be used by a wide range of applications.

The Mozilla project is an industry initiative to deliver an open Internet browser. Mozilla browser technology, together with IBM's SashXB technology, will be integrated into GNOME to deliver an integrated browsing experience into its next generation user environment. GNOME has also integrated Mozilla with the Bonobo component system.

Eazel will provide Nautilus, an innovative file manager which serves as the starting point for Eazel's web-based system management services. Nautilus will provide a state-of-the art file manager for GNOME, with a fully-integrated Mozilla web-browser and a number of innovative new features. The Nautilus software will be integrated with web-based services that provide assistance with file management and system administration.

GnuCash will provide graphing and financial data handling infrastructure.

Helix Code will provide Evolution, the integrated calendar, mail and contacts system, as well as its Bonobo component architecture which enables applications to be built out of reusable software components. In addition, Helix Code will deliver a new set of configuration and administration tools targeted to end users, including configuration snapshotting, rollback and cluster management.

Beyond the Desktop

This initiative will develop the framework and platform services required for applications to be developed and deployed on Internet appliances, consistent and compatible with the GNOME user environment on desktop systems. For the emerging Internet appliance market, Linux has been established as the front runner kernel technology. This initiative will provide a well-defined framework for developers and manufacturers of new devices and developers of Internet-based software services. It will also provide users and developers with a cost-effective framework that will deliver a common experience and share data across a range of hardware platforms, from handhelds to supercomputers.

As part of this initiative, Compaq is working to make Gnome-based applications available on its handheld devices as well as assisting developers through the handhelds.org community and the GNOME Foundation.

Other Key Contributions to Enhance GNOME

IBM is contributing application development tools which enable development of web-based applications (SashXB for Linux) using open web standard languages (HTML, Javascript, DHTML, and XML), but have look-and-feel consistency with other “native” applications.

Red Hat will provide an object-oriented widget framework, CORBA, an OMG industry standard, support for distributed software, lay-out and rendering of internationalized text and configuration management technology.

Sun Microsystems will provide printing, internationalization and accessibility technology as well as its substantial expertise in improving reliability and quality based on its experience in delivering mission-critical solutions for global corporations.

About GNOME

The GNOME project has built a complete free and easy-to-use desktop environment for the user, as well as a powerful application framework for the software developer.

GNOME is part of the GNU project, and is free software (often referred to as open source software). GNOME is included in almost every BSD and Linux distribution and works on many other Unix systems.

Although a number of private and public companies are contributing to the development of GNOME, GNOME is not controlled by any company. It is a volunteer-driven effort with hundreds of volunteer developers from all over the world. Their efforts are coordinated by the Gnome Foundation. Information about GNOME is available at www.gnome.org.

 
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