Red Hat
{{Nofootnotes|date=July 2008}}{{otheruses}}
|
revenue = {{profit}}$400.6 million
USD (2007)
[WEB,weblink Financial Results for Fiscal Year 2007, Red Hat, 2007-06-28, 2008-08-20
] , |
net_income = 59.9 million USD (2007)
(1) |
homepage =
weblink
}}In
computing,
Red Hat, Inc. ({{NYSE|RHT}}) is a company dedicated to
free and open source software, and a major
Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1995, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in
Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.
(2) Some users associate the company primarily with its enterprise operating system
Red Hat Enterprise Linux; others with the acquisition of open-source enterprise middleware vendor
JBoss. Red Hat provides operating-system platforms along with
middleware, applications, and management solutions, as well as support, training, and consulting services.
History
In 1993
Bob Young incorporated the ACC Corporation, a catalog
business that sold Linux and
UNIX software accessories. In 1994
Marc Ewing created his own Linux distribution, which he named
Red Hat Linux. Ewing released it in October, and it became known as the Halloween release. Young bought Ewing's business in 1995, and the two merged to become Red Hat Software, with Young serving as
CEO.Red Hat
went public on
August 11,
1999, the eighth-biggest first-day gain in
Wall Street history.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}
Matthew Szulik succeeded Bob Young as CEO in November of that year.On
November 15,
1999, Red Hat acquired
Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus provided commercial support for
free software and housed maintainers of
GNU software products such as the
GNU Debugger and
GNU binutils. One of the founders,
Michael Tiemann, served as the
chief technical officer of Red Hat and
now serves as the vice president of open source affairs. Later Red Hat acquired WireSpeed,
C2Net and Hell's Kitchen Systems.{{Fact|date=August 2008}} In February 2000,
InfoWorld awarded Red Hat with its fourth consecutive "Operating System Product of the Year" award for Red Hat Linux 6.1. Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc in 2001 and in 2004
AOL's
iPlanet directory and certificate-server software.The company moved its headquarters from
Durham, NC, to
N.C. State University's
Centennial Campus in
Raleigh, North Carolina in February 2002.The following March Red Hat introduced the first enterprise-class Linux operating system{{Fact|date=May 2008}}: Red Hat Advanced Server, later re-named
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
Dell,
IBM,
HP and the
Oracle Corporation announced their support of the platform.{{Fact|date=May 2008}}In December of 2005
CIO Insight magazine conducted its annual Vendor Value Survey, in which Red Hat ranked #1 in value for the second year in a row.{{Fact|date=August 2008}} Red Hat stock became part of the
NASDAQ-100 on
December 19,
2005.Red Hat acquired open-source middleware provider
JBoss on
June 5,
2006 and JBoss became a division of Red Hat. In 2007 Red Hat acquired
MetaMatrix and made an agreement with
Exadel to distribute its software.On
September 18,
2006, Red Hat released the Red Hat Application Stack, the first certified stack integrating JBoss technology.On
December 12,
2006, Red Hat moved from
NASDAQ (RHAT) to the
New York Stock Exchange (RHT).On
2007-03-15 Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June, they acquired
Mobicents.On
2008-03-13, Red Hat acquired Amentra, a provider of systems integration services for SOA, business process management, systems development and enterprise data solutions. Amentra operates as an independent Red Hat company.
Fedora Project
Red Hat sponsors the Fedora Project, a community-supported open-source project which aims to promote the rapid progress of free and open-source software and content. Fedora makes rapid innovation possible using open processes and public forums.{{Fact|date=May 2008}}The Fedora Project Board, which comprises
community leaders and Red Hat members, leads the project and steers the direction of the project and of
Fedora, the
Linux distribution it develops. Red Hat employees work with the code alongside community members, and many Fedora Project innovations make their way into new releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Business model
Red Hat partly operates on a
professional open-source business model based on open code, community development, professional quality-assurance services, and subscription-based
customer support.Developers take the open source
Linux kernel and adapt and improve it to fit certain needs. They produce open-source code, so more programmers can make further adaptations and improvements. When a problem emerges, an entire community of users can come together to find a solution.
(3)Red Hat sells subscriptions for the support, training, and integration services that help customers in using the open source software. Customers pay one set price for access to services such as Red Hat Network and up to 24x7 support, and they receive unlimited access to these services.
Programs and projects
One Laptop per Child
Red Hat engineers work with the
One Laptop per Child initiative (a
non-profit organization created by members of the
MIT Media Lab) to design and produce an inexpensive laptop and provide every child in the world with access to open communication, open knowledge, and open learning. The
XO-1 laptop, the
latest machine of this project runs a slimmed-down version of
Fedora as its operating system.
Mugshot
Red Hat sponsors
Mugshot, an open project building "a live social experience" based around entertainment. It refocuses technological thinking from objects (files, folders, etc) to activities, like web browsing or music sharing.{{Fact|date=May 2008}} These topics form the focus of the first two features in
Mugshot, Web Swarm and Music Radar. These had already started before the announcement of the project at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.
Dogtail
Dogtail, an open source automated
GUI test framework initially developed by Red Hat, consists of free software released under the
GPL and written in
Python. It allows developers to build and test their applications. Red Hat announced the release of Dogtail at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.
Red Hat Magazine
Red Hat produces the
Red Hat Magazine as an online news publication. It brings together issues of interest from inside and outside of the company, focusing on in-depth discussion of the development and application of
open source technologies. It covers news from Red Hat and the
Fedora Project, it updates readers on public licensing and the
Creative Commons, and it features interviews with some industry leaders and open source people.The company originally produced a newsletter called
Under the Brim.
Wide Open magazine first appeared in March 2004 as a means for Red Hat to share technical content with subscribers on a regular basis.
Under the Brim and
Wide Open magazine merged in November of 2004 to become
Red Hat Magazine.
Red Hat Exchange
In 2007 Red Hat announced that it had reached an agreement with major
free software /
open source (FOSS) companies that allowing it to make a distribution portal called Red Hat Exchange, which will resell FOSS software with the original branding intact.
(4){{Failed verification|date=August 2008}}
Competitors
Red Hat's main competitors include
Canonical Ltd.,
Mandriva,
Microsoft,
Novell,
Oracle Corporation,
IBM and
Xandros.
References
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industry = Computer software|
products = Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Directory Server
Red Hat Certificate System
Fedora
Red Hat High performance Computing[ Red Hat High Performance Computing]
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[WEB, The Meaning of Open Source,weblink July 3, 2008, ]
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[Red Hat Prepares Business Application Stacks weblink]
External links
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