SiliconBeat

Carl Redfield, a former Cisco Systems executive who joined SourceForge’s board back when the company was called VA Linux Systems and it built Linux-based hardware, quit the board Tuesday, “effective immediately,” according to a filing with the SEC Thursday.

There was not a syllable of explanation as to why, not even the usual boilerplate explaining that there was no disagreement between he and the company, which now supplies “open source software distribution and services and goods for geeks.”

Redfield, 61, joined the board  in 1998, making him both the oldest and longest-serving member of the SourceForge board. He served on both its nominating and compensation committees and his term was not due to expire until 2010. He leaves owning about 200,000 SourceForge shares, with options covering about that many more shares.

We noted last June that insiders at the company bought its shares for the first time ever, paying from $1.48 to $1.69 per share. In December, one of the company’s largest investors, the Marlin Sams fund, spent $1.7 million buying 2.4 million shares, paying an average of about 70 cents each. They fell Thursday 7 cents to 90 cents each.