"That's a way of getting a piece of infrastructure that you absolutely want out there to everywhere as soon as possible."

Once the public face of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, Waugh resigned from Canonical last month citing his passion for and commitment to the Gnome desktop project as the primary reason.

"So, why now? I'm excited about Ubuntu, passionate about its mission, confident in its future, and have thoroughly enjoyed being part of it from the very beginning," Waugh wrote on his blog. "But ultimately, my heart lies with another [the Gnome project], and I have to take that chance, face that risk, while my family commitments and responsibilities allow it."

Waugh will also work on his own business, Waugh Partners, an open source strategy consultancy.

On the GPL, Waugh said between 60 and 70 percent of open source projects use it and "not just because everyone is a fan of Richard Stallman".