Miguel de Icaza

Miguel de Icaza was born in Mexico City and studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He started writing free software in 1992.

De Icaza started the GNOME project in August 1997, with Federico Mena, to create a completely free desktop environment and component model for GNU/Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Earlier, de Icaza had worked on the Midnight Commander file manager, as well as the Linux kernel.

In 1999, de Icaza co-founded Helix Code, a GNOME-oriented free software company with Nat Friedman, and employed a large number of other GNOME hackers. In 2001, Helix Code, now renamed to Ximian, announced the Mono project, a project led by de Icaza, to implement Microsoft's new .NET development platform on Linux and Unix-like platforms. In August 2003, Ximian was acquired by Novell.

Miguel de Icaza has received the Free Software Foundation 1999 Free Software Award, the MIT Technology Review Innovator of the Year Award 1999, and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 innovators for the new century in September 2000.

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