Adopts upcoming GNOME 2.0 as future user desktop for Solaris[tm] Operating Environment
PALO ALTO, CA — August 15, 2000 — Today at the LinuxWorld 2000 conference in San Jose, California, Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced it is joining the GNOME Foundation, a new organization of open community developers and leading high-technology companies that will advance GNOME as an industry-wide open user environment. Sun also announced it will adopt GNOME 2.0 as the future desktop for its Solaris[tm] Operating Environment. In a related announcement, the GNOME Foundation announced it will adopt OpenOffice.org technology as the core for GNOME Office Suite.
Solaris Operating Environment is the world’s leading mission-critical UNIX(R) operating environment, used by global corporations. OpenOffice.org is the industry initiative to deliver open office productivity applications, based on Sun’s StarOffice office productivity suite, that was provided to the open source community by Sun in July.
“We are delighted to be joining the GNOME Foundation and to be adopting GNOME as the modern desktop for Solaris. Linux developers will now be able to tap into the industrial power of Solaris as they develop applications for desktops and Internet-enabled devices for the dot-com era,” said Marco Boerries, vice president and general manager of webtop and application software at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Sun is committing significant engineering resources to ensure that GNOME integrates seamlessly into Solaris.”
“This is the first time a major systems vendor has embraced free software/open-source software as a key element of its primary operating system,” said Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME project and Helix Code. “Sun’s commitment to GNOME helps usher in a new era in delivering a complete and modern future user environment for not only the Sun community but for the open-source community as well.”
By focusing on Sun’s areas of development expertise–robust UNIX technology, printing, internationalization, accessibility, and network configuration and management–Sun will drive reliability and quality with the GNOME Foundation.
About GNOME 2.0
GNOME 2.0 will be the first major release from the GNOME Foundation, which will integrate the advanced technologies from the GNOME Foundation partners with existing technology from the GNOME Project. Some of the features planned for GNOME 2.0 include an advanced and easy-to-use user environment; an integrated and free office productivity suite; and the latest browser technology from the Mozilla Project.
Availability
GNOME 2.0 for Solaris is scheduled to be available from Sun by the middle of calendar year 2001. Sun plans to start releasing early access versions of GNOME 2.0 for Solaris, as the GNOME 2.0 technology becomes available, around the end of calendar year 2000. CDE-based applications will continue to run in the new Solaris desktop environment without change, and Sun will continue to support CDE users and applications.
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. The GNOME Foundation will provide organizational, financial and legal support to the GNOME project, and help determine its vision and roadmap. Present members include Compaq, Eazel, Free Software Foundation, Gnumatic, Hewlett Packard, Helix Code, Henzai, IBM, Object Management Group, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, TurboLinux and VALinux. Collab.Net, the leading provider of collaborative software development services based on open source principles, is helping to organize the GNOME Foundation. 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. Additional information is available at www.gnome.org.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses. With $15.7 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.