Mexican programmer to start Linux-based software firm
By Therese Poletti
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Miguel de Icaza, a
Mexican programming whiz who helped make Unix and the upstart
Linux computer operating system easier to use in a desktop
environment called GNOME, has started a company to develop more
Linux-based software.
"We are creating applications like Microsoft Office, for
GNOME," the 26-year-old de Icaza said in a phone interview. "We
have investment. It's exciting and I get to work on GNOME full
time so that's even better." The company will be based in the
Cambridge, Mass. area and is expected to have about 12
employees initially.
De Icaza, a wiry, hyper-energetic programmer who gets
teased about how much coffee he drinks, said he is waiting for
his visa to be approved before he moves from Mexico City to the
United States. Just last week, he received an innovation award
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
De Icaza and 300 plus developers have worked in their spare
time to develop GNOME, which is given away free over the
Internet. Now, the company he is founding with Linux programmer
and friend, Nat Friedman, will develop Linux applications, all
of which will be freely available.
De Icaza said he has been working on applications that run
in the GNOME environment, such as a spreadsheet, called
Gnumeric, which can now perform more financial functions that
Microsoft's Excel, thanks to the vast network of programmers
contributing to the code. He said he hopes to have the first
batch of applications ready next March.
De Icaza got the attention of the computing world last
March when the GNOME open source project released the first
version of its product over the Internet, where it has since
been widely acclaimed.
GNOME is an easier-to-use desktop environment for Linux and
the Unix operating system. GNOME gives Linux a point-and-click
graphical user interface system, similar to what Microsoft
Corp.'s <MSFT.O> Windows did for its text-based MS-DOS. While
Linux has made major inroads in the network server area, it is
seen as too unwieldy for the desktop computing market.
"In 14 months, he led 300 programmers all over the world to
create a product that makes Windows 95 looks crude; it's
restful, it's aesthetic," said Frederick Berenstein,
co-chairman of the Linux Fund, which is investing in de Icaza's
company.
The company does plan to make money, de Icaza said, even
though all its products will be given away for free, in the
same vein as many new Linux companies, who are offering
customer support for Linux because it is not owned by any one
company.
"We are a service company and the idea is to build a brand
around GNOME and Linux applications, " de Icaza said. "Like you
can get water for free and you still buy Evian." His company
will provide users with support for GNOME and GNOME
applications. "They have somewhere to get them fixed," he said.
"It's really the first start-up to deal with strictly
applications for Linux," said Tim Ney, spokesman for the Free
Software Foundation, an organization based in Boston.
De Icaza recently quit his day job as a systems
administrator of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The university,
Mexico's largest university, has been shut down for more than
six months by striking students opposed to a plan to charge
tuition fees.
The company has a temporary name, de Icaza said, called
Helix Code Inc,. but de Icaza said that while the name is cool,
it will not appeal to potential users of software applications.
"It might scare people when they see the code part," he said.
"At the beginning, it was a fabulous idea, but we are changing
it."
Linux Fund's Frederick Berenstein and his partner, William
Roseman, declined to specify how much they are investing in de
Icaza's company, but they said they only invest in Linux
companies in which they can take very large positions, suc... |
