<sect1 id="sect-about-history">
  <title>The History of Gnumeric</title>

  <para>
  &gnum; was created in <date>August, 1998</date> 
  by 
  <author>
    <firstname>Miguel</firstname> 
    <surname>de Icaza</surname> 
  </author> 
  almost a year after starting the GNOME Desktop project.  
  
  Historically the spreadsheet was a killer application, an application 
  so useful it gave businesses the reason they needed to buy computers.  
  
  Similarly &gnum; gives people a great reason to 
  choose GNOME.  
  &gnum; also provided a valuable opportunity for 
  developers to stress test various technologies needed for the GNOME Desktop. 

  <!-- 
  Background information:
  Article on Linuxplanet.com quoted Miguel as saying Gnumeric 
  was development was started in part to stress test the canvas widget 
  http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/3989/1/
  -->

  Miguel eventually moved on to other projects after founding software 
  development company Ximian.  

  </para>

  <para>
  <!--
  Early days, instability, need to develop technologies as they went along
  -->
 
  </para>

  <para>
  <author><firstname>Jody</firstname> <surname>Goldberg</surname></author> 
  became the maintainer of <applicatoin>Gnumeric</application> midway through 
  <date>2000</date> in recognition of the work he was doing.  
  </para>

  <!--
  This is just a start, but obviously a whole lot more needs to be written 
  before this can be linked to from the index again.  
  
  Hopefully this document should in some small way inspire people to get 
  involved rather than becoming a tedious Changelog or list of credits.   
  
  more things that could be added:
  short notes on 
    bonobo infrastucture
    guppi framework

  other milestones?
  
  gnome office worth mentioning?
  short noted on the shadow cast by OpenOffice?
  
  -->
  <para>
  &gnum; reached a major milestone on 
  <date>December 31, 2001</date> with the successful release of Version 1.0.  
  </para>

  <para>
  Who knows what the future will bring for &gnum;.  
  There is still more history that has not yet been written.
  </para>

</sect1>

