Ximian
Ximian is a company.
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Leadership Team
Key people at Ximian.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Ximian?
Ximian was founded by Nat Friedman (Cofounder, CEO).
Ximian is a company.
Key people at Ximian.
Ximian was founded by Nat Friedman (Cofounder, CEO).
Key people at Ximian.
Ximian was founded by Nat Friedman (Cofounder, CEO).
Ximian was a pioneering software company that developed, sold, and supported application software for Linux and Unix systems, centered on the GNOME desktop platform. Founded in 1999, it offered a mix of free and proprietary tools, services, and solutions to advance the Linux desktop, serving over a million users worldwide with products like desktop environments and management software.[1][2][5] Its core mission was to professionalize open-source GNOME development, bridging community efforts with enterprise needs, which propelled early Linux adoption in desktops and laid groundwork for projects like Mono.[1][2]
Ximian traces its roots to the GNOME project, launched in 1997 by Miguel de Icaza, a Mexican programmer who had briefly interviewed at Microsoft. There, he met Nat Friedman, a U.S. computer science graduate interning at Microsoft, sparking a lifelong friendship.[1][2][3] In April 1999, Friedman proposed commercializing GNOME support, leading to the company's founding on October 19, 1999, initially as International GNOME Support, then Helix Code (untrademarkable), and finally Ximian in January 2001.[1][3]
With no prior business experience—de Icaza was a math dropout, Friedman a recent grad—the duo hired mostly from open-source contributors via mailing lists and IRC, building a team of GNOME architects.[2][3] Early traction came from co-founding the GNOME Foundation in 2000 with partners like Sun, IBM, and Red Hat, plus initiatives like the Mono project for .NET on Linux.[1][2] David Patrick became CEO in 2001, with Friedman shifting to product management.[1] Ximian went public-ish via desktop adoption but was acquired by Novell in August 2003 for its Linux expertise.[1][5]
Ximian's edge stemmed from its deep integration with the open-source community and focus on enterprise-ready Linux desktops:
Ximian rode the late-1990s open-source wave, accelerating Linux's shift from servers to user-friendly desktops amid Microsoft's dominance. Its timing capitalized on GNOME's 1997 launch, filling gaps in polished Unix/Linux interfaces when enterprises eyed cost-free alternatives to Windows.[1][2][3] Market forces like free software momentum (e.g., Red Hat's rise) and dot-com era funding favored it, positioning Ximian as a Linux evangelist—co-founding foundations and Mono to enable cross-platform dev.[1][2]
It influenced the ecosystem by professionalizing open source: hiring community hackers set a model for firms like Red Hat, boosted GNOME's maturity (now in major distros), and via Novell acquisition, embedded Linux in enterprise (e.g., SUSE). This paved paths for mobile/open dev, as founders later built Xamarin (acquired by Microsoft in 2016).[1][4]
Ximian's legacy endures in modern Linux desktops (GNOME powers Fedora, Ubuntu) and cross-platform tools (Mono evolved into .NET on Linux). Post-2003 Novell buy (then Attachmate 2011), its direct operations ceased, but founders de Icaza and Friedman launched Xamarin in 2011—ironically acquired by Microsoft—extending Ximian's vision to mobile.[1][4][6] Founders pursued new ventures: Friedman explored startups post-Novell.[4]
Looking ahead, Ximian's blueprint shapes today's open-source giants amid cloud-native and AI-driven Linux resurgence. Its story underscores how desktop pioneers fueled the ecosystem's trillion-dollar scale, reminding us that advancing free software remains a high-impact play.