GNOME Foundation adds industry leaders to advisory board

BOSTON, Mass — November 3, 2008 — The GNOME Foundation announced today that Motorola and Google are joining the GNOME Advisory board and sponsoring the GNOME Foundation.

With these two new additions to its advisory board, the GNOME Foundation continues to strengthen its industry support and shows that the support for free and open source software is growing – especially in the mobile space with technologies like GNOME Mobile. The additional funds and resources will be used to on programs that support GNOME’s goal of universal access such as accessibility outreach programs, usability studies and internationalization efforts. GNOME is building on its strength of an accessible desktop to enable universal access to technology through desktops, netbooks, and mobile devices.

“Google is proud to support the many endeavors of our colleagues in Free and Open Source software development.” said Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager. “We’re pleased to continue our collaboration with the GNOME Foundation through our membership on the Foundation’s Advisory Board.”

“For mobile Linux, Motorola believes in open standards and open source technologies,” said Christy Wyatt, Vice President, Software Platforms and Ecosystem, Motorola. “The GNOME Foundation allows us to expand our reach to the vibrant GNOME communities and be active in projects that we currently utilize from the GNOME stack, SQLite, GStreamer, and Bluez to name a few.”

“Advancements in open source mobile technology continue to provide new and beneficial applications while enriching features for developers and end users in software, on desktops and mobile devices,” said Bdale Garbee, Chief Technologist and Linux Chief, Open Source & Linux Organization, HP, and an advisory board member of GNOME. “The addition of new sponsors and advisory board members empowers GNOME to continue its efforts to make exciting progress in free and open source mobile technologies. Working with new sponsors like Google and Motorola, we bring the strengths of open source software to the mobile industry.”

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.

The GNOME Project is creating a complete, free and easy-to-use desktop environment for users, as well as a powerful application development framework for software developers. 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 as well as many mobile platforms like cellular phones and tablets.

The GNOME project has three main goals:

  • Free and open source desktop accessible to all. GNOME is a free desktop available  to everyone, regardless of language, physical ability, technical expertise.
  • Development platform. GNOME is a powerful development platform for developing free and open source software applications.
  • GNOME Mobile. GNOME technologies provide a foundation for mobile applications from tablets to cellular phones.

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

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