GNOME an fara ne a ranar 15 ga Agusta 1997 ta Miguel de Icaza da Federico Mena a matsayin aikin software na kyauta don haɓaka yanayin tebur da aikace-aikace a gare shi. An kafa shi ne saboda K Desktop Environment, wanda ke ƙaruwa cikin shahara, ya dogara da kayan aikin widget na Qt wanda ke amfani da lasisin software na mallaka har zuwa sigar 2.0 (Yuni 1999). A maimakon Qt, an zaɓi kayan aikin GTK a matsayin tushen GNOME. GTK yana amfani da GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), lasisin software na kyauta wanda ke ba da damar amfani da software da ke haɗi da shi don amfani da lasisi da yawa, gami da lasisi na software na mallaka. GNOME kanta an lasisi ta ƙarƙashin LGPL don dakunan karatu, da GNU General Public License (GPL) don sunansa. "GNOME" da farko ya kasance acronym na Gidan Sadar GNU, yana nufin asalin ƙirar software na mallaka har zuwa sigar 2.0 (Yuni 1999).
LGPL