Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 17:22:05 -0500 From: "Jack Velte" <jackv@earthling.net> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: GNOME, the threat that Microsoft can't stop. Message-ID: <005801be5931$a8e67e20$6a6c4cd1@jackv.pacbell.net>
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http://www.feedmag.com/re/re173_master.html An exclusive FEED interview with the man behind GNOME, the threat that Microsoft can't stop. Telecommutes don't get any bigger than this. The spearhead is a 26-year-old system administrator in Mexico City who is struggling to finish up his undergraduate degree in math. ("It's a problem," he says. "I just don't enjoy math any more.") The guy responsible for the icons lives in Helsinki and found out about the movement on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The heart of the desktop was coded by two Berkeley undergrads -- Class of '97 -- who wrote a free version of Photoshop from scratch because they "wanted to make a web page" -- it's now the graphics application for the system. And somebody, somewhere, created in his or her free time "Wanda, the fish applet" that runs on the bottom of the screen and tells the future. Part of bottom navigation of Gnome, including Wanda the fortune-telling fish. No doubt that future is going to be damn interesting. All these people -- plus at least another 250 from around the planet -- are working on Gnome 1.0, a user-friendly, free operating system designed for you and me and people like our parents. Gnome is part of Richard Stallman's GNU Project to develop free software alternatives to proprietary code that dominates the market. (Gnome stands for "GNU Network Object Model Environment.") Scheduled for release in late February (don't tell anybody) after 14 months of heavy development, Gnome is not intended to be another free software innovation strictly for hardcore hackers. "This is aimed at regular users -- for home users or kids or secretary-people," says Miguel de Icaza, the Gnome frontman from Mexico City. "It's for people who are not trained to be programmers" -- namely, the millions stuck on Microsoft Windows or Macs or even OS/2 and not happy about it. It's an ambitious project, and one with an enormous amount of momentum. Already Gnome has a word processor ("Go"), a spreadsheet ("Gnumeric"), a calendar ("Gnomecal"), the aforementioned Photoshop clone ("Gimp"), even a Tetris rip-off in Polish ("Gnometris"). Red Hat Labs, the research and development facility at one of the best-known free software distributors, is behind it. The lab's director Dr. Mike has dedicated a team of developers to working on it: "My primary satisfaction is knowing that Gnome will allow non-technical users to enjoy the same powerful OS that I have for so long." In this interview, Gnome creator Miguel de Icaza talks about the project, the dangers of "overestimating Microsoft," and the challenge of getting an open source project off the ground. -- Austin Bunn To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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