A couple weeks ago, I wrote some posts on GNOME Shell which included a number of criticisms of the desktop environment that will likely become Ubuntu's default at some point in the future.  Jon McCann, lead designer for GNOME Shell, recently got in touch to offer his responses to the problems I found with the new interface.  Here's what he had to say.

GNOME Split is a simple tool that allows you to split files and merge them back. It is written in Java and uses a GTK+ user interface. GNOME Split 0.6 codenamed Bengal Tiger has been released recently.

Gnome Shell is the future window manager for UNIX-like operating systems running the Gnome desktop environment. It is slated to be part of the Gnome 3.0, which will probably be released sometime next year. However, this does not mean you cannot try Gnome Shell now and get the first impression of what it ought to be.

Only a few days ago, we ran an article on the future of KDE and GNOME, and which of the two had the brighter future based on their developmental processes. Barely has that discussion ended, or the GNOME engineering team comes with a pretty daunting plan to introduce a fairly massive reworking of the GNOME interface for GNOME 3.0 (2.30). Read on for the details.

According to a recent posting from Philip Van Hoof, he suggests that Gnome split off from the GNU Project and proposes a vote. He has been informed he will need 5% of members to agree for there to be a vote put forth. At the same time David Schlesinger (on the Gnome Advisory Board) has agreed on a vote.

I am stoked to be designing a Gnome that kicks ass for hackers too. McCann is right: the ‘choice‘ between design for office monkeys and hacking monkeys is a false dichotomy.

bout half a year ago i was looking around me and seeing stagnation in the gnome community. i was concerned that gnome had lost its momentum and that we were just making boring incremental releases that added very little new functionality. i think i was very wrong. i’d like to take this time to list some things that are happening right now in the gnome community that have me very excited.

With Gnome 2.26 safely out the door the Gnome development team is now planning for Gnome 3.0, a release it expects to make in March next year. Responding to growing criticism that the Gnome project lacks vision the team says that the 3.0 milestone release will have to have “big user-visible changes”.

GNOME release manager Vincent Untz talks to heise open about the projects future plans for the popular desktop manager.