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><A
NAME="AEN30"
>What is GNOME?</A
></H1
><P
>GNOME is the GUI desktop of the <A
HREF="http://gnu.org"
TARGET="_top"
>GNU
      Project</A
>.</P
><P
>To quote from the original announcement from
      comp.os.linux.announce, GNOME is intended to be "a free and
      complete set of user friendly applications and desktop tools,
      similar to CDE and KDE but based entirely on free
      software."</P
><P
>I, your lowly FAQ maintainer, like to explain GNOME as
      everything that's expected in a modern programming
      environment. In this respect, it is approximately equivalent to
      CDE, Win32, NextStep, or KDE. The big difference is that, unlike
      any of the above-mentioned examples, every single component of
      GNOME is <A
HREF="http://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html"
TARGET="_top"
>Free Software</A
>.</P
><P
>For the project geographers out there, here are some of
      the higher mountains to be found in GNOME-land:</P
><P
></P
><UL
><LI
><P
>GNOME uses the Object Management Group's Common Object
	  Request Broker Architecture to allow software components to
	  inter-operate seamlessly, regardless of the language in which
	  they are implemented, or even what machine they are running
	  on! (See <A
HREF="corba.html"
>CORBA</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>The GNOME community is working hard on developing an
	  object model called Bonobo.  Based on CORBA and similar to
	  Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding, v2 (OLE2), Bonobo
	  will allow programmers to export and/or import componentized
	  resources. This, for example, would allow users to use
	  whatever editor they like in their development environment,
	  provided that their editor supported via CORBA a
	  standardized editor interface (See <A
HREF="corba.html#BONOBO"
>Bonobo</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME is not tied to any one window manager. You can
	  chose your favorite window manager and use it with
	  GNOME. (See <A
HREF="wm.html"
>Window Manager</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME uses the Gimp Tool Kit (GTK+) as the graphics
	  toolkit for all graphical applications. GTK+ has tons of
	  neat features, but my three favs are: (1) support for
	  multiple languages, including C, C++, Objective-C, Scheme,
	  Perl, and others; (2) themability, where a user can change
	  the look and feel of all GTK+ apps on a machine while apps
	  are running, which is just unbelievably cool; (3) and
	  finally, GTK+ is licensed under the LGPL, meaning that it is
	  completely Free Software, just like the rest of GNOME. (See
	  <A
HREF="graphics.html#GTK"
>GTK+</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>Along with GTK+, GNOME uses Imlib, an image library
	  for the X Window System which supports multiple image
	  formats, from XPM to PNG, and multiple bit-depths, from
	  24-bit True Color down to 1-bit Black and White, all
	  transparently to the programmer. (See <A
HREF="graphics.html#IMLIB"
>Imlib</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>All GNOME applications are session aware. This means,
	  e.g., that if you shut down the GNOME word processor and
	  then start it back up again, it will open up the document
	  which you had open before, and put your cursor back at the
	  same place. This is accomplished via the X Session
	  Management system, as implemented in the GNOME Session
	  Manager. (See <A
HREF="sm.html"
>Session
	  Management</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME uses the DocBook SGML standard for all
	  documentation, which allows programmers to write
	  documentation in a straightforward way. Documentation can
	  then be viewed with the GNOME help browser, or rendered into
	  HTML and viewed with a web browser, or converted into LaTeX
	  or postscript and printed out. (See <A
HREF="docbook.html#SGML"
>SGML</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME supports the Uniforum standard
	  internationalization and localization methods, allowing
	  support for new languages to be added without even requiring
	  a recompile of the application. (See <A
HREF="i18n.html"
>Internationalization &#38;
	  Localization</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME applications will support several Drag and Drop
	  protocols for maximum interoperability with other
	  applications. (See <A
HREF="graphics.html#XDND"
>Drag and
	  Drop</A
>)</P
></LI
><LI
><P
>GNOME will support 3D programming with OpenGL,
	  allowing people to use 3-dimensional graphics right in their
	  GNOME apps, whether they be scientific applications or
	  games. GNOME uses Mesa, which is a free software
	  implementation of the OpenGL standard. (See <A
HREF="graphics.html#OPENGL"
>OpenGL</A
>)</P
></LI
></UL
><P
>If all of this seems ambitious, that's because it is! Read
      on to find out more!</P
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