Ximian

Ximian Ximian was a software company founded in 1999 by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman that focused on desktop and developer tools for the GNOME desktop and Linux ecosystems. The company produced applications and middleware used by projects such as KDE, Mozilla Firefox, and Apache HTTP Server, and engaged with entities including Red Hat, Novell, IBM, and Sun Microsystems. Ximian played a role in initiatives involving Free Software Foundation, Open Source Initiative, and standards bodies such as World Wide Web Consortium.

History

Ximian was established in 1999 amid activity surrounding projects like GNOME Project, Debian, Ubuntu, Mandrake, and SUSE Linux. Early work intersected with efforts at X.Org Foundation, KDE e.V., and desktop integration seen in distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Gentoo Linux. The company announced products and partnerships at conferences including LinuxWorld, GUADEC, FOSDEM, and OSCON, collaborating with organizations like Mozilla Foundation, The Apache Software Foundation, HP, and Intel. As interest in managed runtimes grew, Ximian engaged in work related to Microsoft .NET Framework, Mono project, and interoperability discussions involving ECMA International and Microsoft.

Products and Technologies

Ximian developed a portfolio that included desktop productivity and developer tools with ties to projects like GNOME Office, GIMP, OpenOffice.org, Evolution (software), and Beagle (software). Developer tooling efforts connected to Mono project, MonoDevelop, MSBuild, and interoperability components for ASP.NET and SQL Server. System management solutions bore relationships to package management approaches used in RPM Package Manager, Debian GNU/Linux, and services inspired by Red Hat Network; the Red Carpet product referenced concepts from YaST and PackageKit. Integration libraries such as Bonobo had conceptual relations to component models like CORBA and technologies from Microsoft COM and GNOME Library. Search and indexing work evoked parallels with Beagle (software), Tracker (software), and Lucene. Ximian products were showcased alongside applications such as Evolution, Nautilus, Epiphany (web browser), and Gedit.

Business Operations and Corporate Structure

Ximian operated with offices in locations that included Boston, Massachusetts, Menlo Park, California, and other regions tied to talent from universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Waterloo. The leadership team engaged with corporate partners including Novell, Red Hat, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and HP. Ximian’s business model combined commercial support and services reminiscent of arrangements between Canonical (company) and enterprise customers, consulting relationships similar to those of CollabNet, and licensing interactions that paralleled SUSE partnerships. Sales and marketing activities intersected with channel strategies like those used by Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM Global Services.

Community and Open Source Contributions

The company contributed upstream to projects including GNOME Project, Mono project, Evolution (software), Beagle (software), GStreamer, and interactions with Mozilla Foundation projects such as Thunderbird and Firefox. Ximian staff participated in community events like GUADEC, FOSDEM, LinuxCon, ApacheCon, and Open Source Summit, and worked with organizations including Free Software Foundation, Open Source Initiative, and European Commission outreach programs. Contributions influenced packaging efforts in distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Project, openSUSE, and Arch Linux, and collaborations drew on tools common to projects like Git, Subversion, Bugzilla, and Launchpad. The company’s engineers engaged with standards activities at ECMA International and interoperability dialogues involving Microsoft.

Acquisition and Legacy

In 2003 Ximian was acquired by Novell, an event reported alongside other industry moves involving Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft. Post-acquisition, Ximian technologies and personnel became part of Novell initiatives that related to Mono project, MonoDevelop, Novell Evolution Client, and enterprise integration similar to Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise. Former employees later joined or founded organizations including Miguel de Icaza-linked efforts, GNOME Foundation, Canonical (company), Microsoft, Azure, Microsoft Open Technologies, and startups that interfaced with Amazon Web Services, Google, and Facebook. The influence of Ximian’s work can be traced through ongoing projects such as GNOME, Mono, MonoDevelop, Evolution, and ecosystem tools used by Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform.

Category:Software companies established in 1999 Category:Defunct software companies of the United States