De Icaza, a flamboyant 28-year-old programmer from Mexico, is founder of the Gnome project to outfit Linux with a polished graphical user interface. He's also chief technology officer of Ximian, a company that is trying to capitalise on Gnome by linking that user interface to e-commerce services on the Internet.
The success of Gnome, which top Linux seller Red Hat backed heavily, has attracted heavy hitters such as Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. Both computing giants plan eventually to adopt Gnome as their standard user interface.
Open-source efforts such as Linux and Gnome have a political dimension as well, as de Icaza believes the software will make computing more feasible for poorer nations. De Icaza's position at the crossroads of technology and politics merited an invitation to speak at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of top politicians and executives in Switzerland last month.
But de Icaza faces some challenges as well. Despite some lowered barriers between Gnome and the competing interface KDE, the rift persists. De Icaza acknowledged that the split was "a very bad situation."
CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland spoke with de Icaza on these and other issues in a recent interview.
