Dom

Through one of history's quirks, Seibt again finds himself in a mano-a-mano struggle against Windows--but this time he heads SuSE, a company whose operating system is causing major headaches for the folks up in Redmond.

In late spring, SuSE was selected by the city of Munich in a much-publicized and rare defeat for Microsoft, which actually came in with a lower bid. Whether Munich was a harbinger or a one-off example of the vagaries of IT decision making, it was seized upon by open-source proponents as a big victory for their side.

Seibt, who still remembers the bruises from his first tangle with Microsoft, is hardly ready to declare victory. Still, he does see clear momentum building around Linux--despite the turmoil in the open-source community triggered by the SCO-IBM lawsuit.

After a long career at Big Blue, where among other things he was managing director of IBM Germany, Seibt joined SuSE in January. He recently sat down for a roundtable discussion with CNET News.com's Editorial Board to talk about the future of open-source software and his plans for expanding the company's profile in the United States.

Read More...