Luis pointed out that the news has hit the streets earlier than expected - so here, for those not in the know, is the news. GNOME is partnering with a group called OSC (the Open Source Consortiuum), a UK group which does consulting for public administration and enterprise deployment of free software.

The announcement is here, and soon to be in other places too.

What does this mean? For a start it means that when OSC is pitching a free desktop to NGOs in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, they will be pitching GNOME. It means that we get access to IT decision makers in UK local government, and get to show what's great about GNOME. It also means that OSC has more credibility as a consultancy (let's be honest). Which is good for GNOME too.