GNOME Joins The Librem 5 Party, Still Needs To Raise One Million More Dollars

One week after announcing KDE cooperation on the proposed Librem 5 smartphone with plans to get Plasma Mobile on the device if successful, the GNOME Foundation has sent out their official endorsement of Purism's smartphone dream.

Purism had been planning to use GNOME from the start for their GNU/Linux-powered privacy-minded smartphone while as of today they have the official backing of the GNOME Foundation.

The GNOME Foundation announced, " The GNOME Foundation has provided their endorsement and support of Purism’s efforts to build the Librem 5, which if successful will be the world’s first free and open smartphone with end-to-end encryption and enhanced user protections. The Librem 5 is a hardware platform the Foundation is interested in advancing as a GNOME/GTK phone device. The GNOME Foundation is committed to partnering with Purism to create hackfests, tools, emulators, and build awareness that surround moving GNOME/GTK onto the Librem 5 phone."

GNOME is planning some enhancements on their side if the phone becomes a reality, "As part of the collaboration, if the campaign is successful the GNOME Foundation plans to enhance GNOME shell and general performance of the system with Purism to enable features on the Librem 5."

It remains undecided though whether GNOME or KDE Plasma Mobile would be the default interface of the Librem 5.

The Librem 5 has now raised $516k of their $1.5 million dollar goal with just over 30 days left in the campaign.