GNOME delays 3.0 release

in brief The release of the next major upgrade of the GNOME desktop, GNOME 3.0, has been pushed back to September 2010. GNOME 2.30 is still intended for a March 2010 release.

This announcement, made by GNOME foundation director Vincent Untz, reverses previous plans to make the release of GNOME 2.30 the first release of GNOME 3.0.

"Note that this release date for 3.0 doesn't mean that 2.30 will be less stable than usual," said Untz. "On the contrary, this will help us integrate the changes that are ready for 2.30, while leaving the parts that are still rough on the edges outside of GNOME, as used daily by our users, until after 2.30 is out. This will solidify both our 2.30 and 3.0 releases."

Keeping the GNOME 2.x series for another six months will fall in nicely with plans for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, as Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has said previously that Lucid Lynx's interface would be based on GNOME 2.x. Ubuntu intends to move to a GNOME 3.0-based desktop for releases after April 2010.