What is the relationship between the GNU Project and the GNOME desktop suite? GNOME itself claims to be a part of the GNU Project. But its relationship with the organisation is not the same as that of other software projects which are part of GNU.

GNU Project and Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman says, though GNOME is part of the GNU Project, it does not "follow GNU policies the way a normal GNU package does. That's Miguel's doing."

The reference is to Miguel de Icaza, one of the co-founders of GNOME who now works for Novell as its open source chief.

Stallman says the FSF is not connected with GNOME. "The GNOME developers only listen to me a little. (That is the result of Miguel de Icaza's actions)," he said.

Regarding GNOME's involvement in the OOXML standardisation process, he said: "The official announcement a couple of weeks ago said that GNOME is intentionally not doing anything during this phase of the process, precisely to avoid helping Microsoft win ISO acceptance."

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