Bob Young talks about the origins of Red Hat

Summary: Red Hat, the world's open source leader, is a billion dollar company, but it began in a sewing closet. Co-founder Bob Young talks about the company's humble beginnings.

Raleigh, NC:At the All Things Open conference,Red Hat co-founder Bob Young shared tales of the early days of Red Hat.The first billion dollar pure play open source companyhad a humble beginning.

Bob Young, who've I've known for 20 years, is not a technology guy. The "Linux" part of Red Hat Linux came from Marc Ewing. Still, if it hadn't been for Young, Red Hat (named after Ewing's grandfather's Cornell University lacrosse cap), might have just been another long forgotten Linux company.

Young's rise to success was an unlikely one. He admitted that "I became an entrepreneur because no one would hire me. So I went to Kinkos and printed business cards saying Bob Young, President. It made my mom proud."

Why did such a clearly bright man have so much trouble? He explained, "I had ADD before it was fashionable."

Before he came to Linux, Young had started a retail typewriter business. This was followed by a computer-leasing business. He then became interested in Linux and in 1993 he founded ACC Corporation, a catalog business that sold Slackware Linux CDs and related open source software. (Remember, in 1993, a V.32bis modem with a top speed of 14.4-bits per second was a fast modem, so there was a real market for mail-order Linux CDs.)

Even then, however, Young didn't really "get" Linux. It was only when he visited Goddard Space Flight Center and Don Becker invited him to see a neat project he was working on that he got it. Becker's project, was, of course, Beowulf, the first Linux supercomputer.

It wasn't much to look at. The first Beowulf was made of 16 already obsolete 486 DX4 computers connected by channel-bonded Ethernet. But Becker and his partner, Tom Sterling, had shown that with Linux you could make a powerful computer using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and free software. That night, Young realized that Linux was more than just a neat product.

In talking with other Linux users, Young was told time and time again that sure, "Solaris was much better than Linux, but it was only by using Linux that he could tweak the operating systems to meet their needs."

So Young got together with Ewing, and, from Young's wife sewing closet, they launched Red Hat Linux. It wasn't easy.

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Bob Young talks about the origins of Red Hat