Ximian Founder Nat Friedman Leaves Novell

Jan 08, 2010

Marcel Hilzinger

After nearly 7 years at Novell and over 11 years in the Linux business, the newly-wed Nat Friedman will take a trip around the world before founding a startup in the U.S.A..

Nat's blog begins with the words, "Today was my last day at Novell." Nat Friedman joined Novell when they took over Ximian. He founded the company, which specialized in the Gnome desktop, together with Miguel de Icaza in 1999. Once at Novell, Icaza took care of the .Net Framework while Friedman worked on various projects, including Evolution, until finally becoming Chief Technology and Strategy Officer for Open Source. In the last few years he worked with other SUSE developers on the SUSE Studio, which builds finished SUSE Linux Enterprise images with just a few mouse-clicks.

Nat Friedman and his new wife Stephanie will be spending the next few days in the Alps (he's been living in Germany's Munich since 2007). Then they will start a trip around the world. How long this will take is unclear, but he plans a startup in the US when they get back.

"It's likely that when we're done traveling my next move will be to start a company in the US. It's hard to imagine myself doing something other than founding a startup. But you never know. I'm open to anything."

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