Gnome is a graphical desktop environment for 'nix operating systems, most notably Linux and the Java Desktop System which is part of Solaris. Gnome is developed with a focus on usability, accessibility, and developer-friendliness.
Gnome was originally developed by Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena, university students at the time, in response to kde's licensing issues with their widget toolkit, Qt.
Gnome 3
Gnome 3 is the latest major iteration of the Gnome desktop environment, featuring a new interface, known as Gnome Shell.
Note however that ubuntu does not use Gnome Shell, favoring its own interface called unity instead.
Gnome Shell is written in C/C++ and Javascript.
