Miguel is a free software programmer from Mexico, best known for spawning the GNOME and Mono projects. He started writing free software in 1992 and created the GNOME project in August 1997 with Federico Mena Quintero, to create a completely free desktop environment and component model for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Earlier, De Icaza had worked on the Midnight Commander file manager, as well as the Linux kernel. He was also the creator of the spreadsheet program Gnumeric.

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 Miguel. In August 2003, Ximian was acquired by Novell. De Icaza is currently the Vice President of Developer Platforms at 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.