Yald Patrick Grote's Blog

Red Hat Linux – making money with open source

Number 19 on the top 25 eWeek technology list is Red Hat Linux. Red Hat was the first distribution to openly try to make money in the open source market.

My first exposure to Red Hat Linux came through a book. I think it was called Learn Red Hat Linux in 30 Days or something, but the Red Hat distro was included with the book. My goal in learning Linux was two-fold: 1) I wanted to brush up on my Unix command line syntax and 2) I wanted to learn more about this new thing called Linux.

As I ran through the installation, I became very impressed with the work Red Hat put into making Linux usable. I jumped on their website and learned that they were trying to make money with open source. This was an idea that not many people had tried and even fewer, if any, made successful.

Red Hat is doing something well, since they are the leader in open source solutions for businesses.

Related posts:

1. Hollywood making the same mistakes as the music industry
2. Testing New Software Development and Systems – Mitch Kapor Style
3. CitiMortgage Building Open Space from Cafeteria