GNOME is and acronym for GNU Object Model Environment. GNU is a free software project that you can read more about at http://www.gnu.org. GNOME is a desktop environment developed for Linux by hundreds of programmers across the world in an Open Source development environment. The source code for GNOME and GNOME itself are freely available to anyone. If you would like to learn more about the GNOME project you may visit the GNOME Web Site.
The GNOME project was started to make a user friendly desktop environment for Linux that would become a standard for Linux users worldwide. GNOME has everything you would expect from a modern desktop for any operating system with the added bonus of running on top of Linux, arguably the most stable operating system available.
Above all, users of other operating systems should be right at home using the powerful graphic driven desktop the GNOME provides.