A week after Novell made Ron Hovsepian president of worldwide field operations, Richard Seibt (one of the leading minds behind SuSE Linux) has quit. Richard came to Novell when the company aquired SuSE in 2004, but had become increasingly unhappy and disillusioned at Novell since the takeover. His exodus mirrors similar departures from the company by vice chairman Chris Stone last November and of chief technology officer Alan Nugent this March. Is Novell starting the slow process of ridding itself of its original SuSE staff? Looks like it.