Nat Friedman Leaves Novell: Is open source in trouble?

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Nat Friedman, the one-time CTO for open source at Novell is no longer at Novell. His last day was Friday. Friedman came to Novell by way of the acquisition of Ximian – a GNOME company he co-founded with Miguel De Icaza.

The first time I met Friedman was back in 2004 at a Toronto Linux event, when he gave, what was at the time, one of the first keynote speeches he had ever delivered. Friedman was passionate about the Linux desktop (since of course 2004 was The Year of the Linux Desktop…). No surprise since he did help to create the GNOME project after all.

Now he’s gone from Novell, off to take some time off and then to another startup? Does this mean trouble for Novell? Maybe, then again maybe not.

“It’s likely that when we’re done traveling my next move will be to
start a company in the U.S., “Friedman blogged. “It’s hard to imagine myself doing something
other than founding a startup. But you never know. I’m open to anything.”