 | |
.jpeg) Red Hat Tower, the company's headquarters in Raleigh | |
| Company type | Subsidiary (independent) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer software |
| Predecessor | Container Linux Cygnus Solutions  |
| Founded | March 1993; 32 years ago (1993-03) |
| Founder | |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
| Products | List
|
Number of employees | 19,000[4] |
| Parent | IBM (2019–present) |
| Subsidiaries | |
| Website | redhat.com |
Red Hat, Inc. (formerlyRed Hat Software, Inc.) is an Americansoftware company that providesopen source software products to enterprises[5] and is asubsidiary ofIBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has itscorporate headquarters inRaleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide.
Red Hat has become associated to a large extent with itsenterprise operating systemRed Hat Enterprise Linux. With the acquisition of open-source enterprisemiddleware vendor JBoss, Red Hat also offersRed Hat Virtualization (RHV), an enterprise virtualization product. Red Hat provides storage, operating system platforms, middleware, applications, management products, support, training, andconsulting services.
Red Hat creates, maintains, and contributes to many free software projects. It has acquired thecodebases of severalproprietary software products throughcorporate mergers and acquisitions, and has released such software underopen source licenses. As of March 2016[update], Red Hat is the second largest corporate contributor to theLinux kernel version 4.14 afterIntel.[6]
On October 28, 2018, IBM announced its intent to acquire Red Hat for $34 billion.[7][8][9] The acquisition closed on July 9, 2019.[10] It now operates as an independent subsidiary.[11][10]
In 1993,Bob Young incorporated the ACC Corporation, acatalogbusiness that sold Linux andUnix software accessories. In 1994,Marc Ewing created his own Linux distribution, which he namedRed Hat Linux[12] (associated with the time Ewing wore a redCornell Universitylacrosse hat, given to him by his grandfather, while attendingCarnegie Mellon University[13][14][15]). Ewing released the software in October, and it became known as the Halloween release. Young bought Ewing's business in 1995,[clarification needed] and the two merged to become Red Hat Software, with Young serving aschief executive officer (CEO).
Red Hatwent public on August 11, 1999, achieving—at the time—the eighth-biggest first-day gain in the history ofWall Street.[12]Matthew Szulik succeededBob Young as CEO in December of that year.[16]Bob Young went on to found the onlineprint on demand andself-publishing company,Lulu in 2002.
On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquiredCygnus Solutions. Cygnus provided commercial support forfree software and housed maintainers ofGNU software products such as theGNU Debugger andGNU Binutils. One of the founders of Cygnus,Michael Tiemann, became thechief technical officer of Red Hat and by 2008[update] the vice president of open-source affairs. Later Red Hat acquired WireSpeed,C2Net, Hell's Kitchen Systems, and Akopia.[17][18]
In February 2000,InfoWorld awarded Red Hat its fourth consecutive "Operating System Product of the Year" award for Red Hat Linux 6.1.[19] Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc. in 2001 andAOL'siPlanet directory and certificate-server software in 2004.
Red Hat moved its headquarters fromDurham toNorth Carolina State University'sCentennial Campus inRaleigh, North Carolina in February 2002. In the following month Red Hat introduced Red Hat Linux Advanced Server,[20][21] later renamedRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).Dell,[22]IBM,[23]HP[24] andOracle Corporation[25] announced their support of the platform.[26]
In December 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.[27] Red Hat stock became part of theNASDAQ-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. On September 18, 2006, Red Hat released the Red Hat Application Stack, which integrated the JBoss technology and which was certified by other well-known software vendors.[28][29] On December 12, 2006, Red Hat stock moved from trading onNASDAQ (RHAT) to theNew York Stock Exchange (RHT). In 2007 Red Hat acquiredMetaMatrix and made an agreement with Exadel to distribute its software.
On March 15, 2007, Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June acquiredMobicents. On March 13, 2008, Red Hat acquired Amentra, a provider of systems integration services forservice-oriented architecture,business process management,systems development, and enterprise data services.
On July 27, 2009, Red Hat replacedCIT Group inStandard and Poor's 500 stock index, a diversified index of 500 leading companies of the U.S. economy.[30][31] This was reported as a major milestone for Linux.[32][33]
On December 15, 2009, it was reported that Red Hat will payUS$8.8 million to settle a class action lawsuit related to the restatement of financial results from July 2004. The suit had been pending in theU.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Red Hat reached the proposed settlement agreement and recorded a one-time charge ofUS$8.8 million for the quarter that ended Nov. 30.[34]
On January 10, 2011, Red Hat announced that it would expand its headquarters in two phases, adding 540 employees to the Raleigh operation, and investing overUS$109 million. The state of North Carolina is offering up toUS$15 million in incentives. The second phase involves "expansion into new technologies such as software virtualization and technology cloud offerings".[35]
On August 25, 2011, Red Hat announced it would move about 600 employees from theN.C. State Centennial Campus to theTwo Progress Plaza building.[36] A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on June 24, 2013, in the re-branded Red Hat Headquarters.[37]
In 2012, Red Hat became the first one-billion dollar open-source company, reachingUS$1.13 billion in annual revenue during its fiscal year.[38] Red Hat passed the $2 billion benchmark in 2015. As of February 2018[update] the company's annual revenue was nearly $3 billion.[39]
On October 16, 2015, Red Hat announced its acquisition of IT automation startupAnsible, rumored for an estimated US$100 million.[40]
In June 2017, Red Hat announced Red HatHyperconverged Infrastructure (RHHI) 1.0 software product.[41]
In May 2018, Red Hat acquiredCoreOS.[42]
Red Hat's links to branches of Israel's military and statements of support for Israeli associates has also led to some controversy and calls for boycott during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.[43][44][45]
On October 28, 2018,IBM announced its intent to acquire Red Hat for US$34 billion, in one of its largest-ever acquisitions. The company will operate out of IBM's Hybrid Cloud division.[46][47]Microsoft,Amazon, andGoogle reportedly also considered buying Red Hat.[48]
Six months later, on May 3, 2019, the US Department of Justice concluded its review of IBM's proposed Red Hat acquisition,[49] and according to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols "essentially approved the IBM/Red Hat deal".[50] The acquisition was closed on July 9, 2019.[51]
.svg){kind=logo}
Red Hat is the primary sponsor of the Fedora Project, a community-supported free software project that aims to promote the rapid progress offree and open-source software and content.[52]
Red Hat operates on abusiness model based onopen-source software, development within a community, professionalquality assurance, and subscription-basedcustomer support. They produce open-source code so that more programmers can make adaptations and improvements.
Red Hat sells subscriptions for the support, training, and integration services that help customers in using their open-source software products. Customers pay one set price for unlimited access to services such asRed Hat Network and up to24/7 support.[53]
In September 2014, however, CEOJim Whitehurst announced that Red Hat was "in the midst of a major shift from client-server to cloud-mobile".[54]
Rich Bynum, a member of Red Hat's legal team, attributes Linux's success and rapid development partially to open-source business models, including Red Hat's.[55]
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Red Hat" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(January 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Red Hat engineers worked with theOne Laptop per Child initiative (anon-profit organization established by members of theMIT Media Lab) to design and produce an inexpensive laptop and try to provide every child in the world with access to open communication, open knowledge, andopen learning. TheXO-4 laptop, the last machine the project produced (in 2012), runs a slimmed-down version ofFedora 17 as its operating system.
Avi Kivity began the development of KVM in mid-2006 atQumranet, a technologystartup company that was acquired by Red Hat in 2008.[56][57][58]
Red Hat is the largest contributor to theGNOME desktop environment. It has several employees working full-time onEvolution, the officialpersonal information manager for GNOME.
Init system and system/service manager for Linux systems.
Network-capablesound server program distributed via thefreedesktop.org project.
Dogtail, an open-source automatedgraphical user interface (GUI) test framework initially developed by Red Hat, consists of free software released under theGNU General Public License (GPL) and is written inPython. It allows developers to build and test their applications. Red Hat announced the release of Dogtail at the 2006 Red Hat Summit.[59][60]
Red Hat MRG is aclustering product intended for integratedhigh-performance computing (HPC). Theacronym MRG stands for "Messaging Realtime Grid".
Red Hat Enterprise MRG replaces the kernel of Red Hat Enterprise LinuxRHEL, aLinux distribution developed by Red Hat, to provide extra support forreal-time computing, together with middleware support formessage brokerage and scheduling workload to local or remotevirtual machines,grid computing, andcloud computing.[61]
As of 2011[update], Red Hat works with theCondor High-Throughput Computing System community and also provides support for the software.[62]
The Tuna performance-monitoring tool runs in the MRG environment.[63]
Red Hat produced the online publication Opensource.com since January 20, 2010.[64] The site highlights waysopen-source principles apply in domains other than software development. The site tracks the application of open-source philosophy to business, education, government, law, health, and life.
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 regularly. The Under the Brim newsletter and Wide Open magazine merged in November 2004, to becomeRed Hat Magazine. In January 2010,Red Hat Magazine became Opensource.com.[65] In April 2023 Red Hat went through company layoffs and laid off the team maintaining Opensource.com.[66]
In 2007, Red Hat announced that it had reached an agreement with somefree software andopen-source (FOSS) companies that allowed it to make a distribution portal called Red Hat Exchange, reselling FOSS software with the original branding intact.[67][68] However, by 2010, Red Hat had abandoned the Exchange program to focus their efforts more on their Open Source Channel Alliance which began in April 2009.[69]
Red Hat build of Keycloak[70] (formerly known as Red Hat Single Sign-On[71]) is a software product to allow single sign-on with Identity Management and Access Management aimed at modern applications and services. It is based on the open-source projectKeycloak, which acts as anupstream project.
Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)[72] combines content delivery withsubscription management.[73]
Red Hat is the largest contributor to theCeph StorageSDS project : Block, File & Object Storage which runs on industry-standard x86 servers and Ethernet IP as well as ARM, InfiniBand, and other technologies.
Ceph aims primarily for completely distributed operation without a single point of failure, scalable to the exabyte level.
Ceph replicates data and makes it fault-tolerant, using commodity hardware and requiring no specific hardware support. Ceph's system offers disaster recovery and data redundancy through techniques such as replication, erasure coding, snapshots and storage cloning. As a result of its design, the system is both self-healing and self-managing, aiming to minimize administration time and other costs.
In this way, administrators have a single, consolidated system that avoids silos and collects the storage within a common management framework. Ceph consolidates several storage use cases and improves resource utilization. It also lets an organization deploy servers where needed.
Red Hat operatesOpenShift, acloud computingplatform as a service, supporting applications written inNode.js,PHP,Perl,Python,Ruby,JavaEE and more.[74]
On July 31, 2018, Red Hat announced the release of Istio 1.0, a microservices management program used in tandem with theKubernetes platform. The software purports to provide "traffic management, service identity and security, policy enforcement and telemetry" services in order to streamline Kubernetes use under the variousFedora-based operating systems. Red Hat's Brian Redbeard Harring described Istio as "aiming to be a control plane, similar to the Kubernetes control plane, for configuring a series of proxy servers that get injected between application components".[75] Also Red Hat is the second largest contributor to Kubernetes code itself, after Google.[76]
Red Hat markets a version ofOpenStack which helps manage adata center in the manner of cloud computing.[77]
Red Hat CloudForms provides management ofvirtual machines, instances andcontainers based on VMware vSphere, Red Hat Virtualization, Microsoft Hyper-V, OpenStack, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, andRed Hat OpenShift. CloudForms is based on theManageIQ project that Red Hat open sourced. Code in ManageIQ is from the overUS$100 million acquisition of ManageIQ in 2012.[78][79]
Container Linux (formerly CoreOS Linux) is a discontinued open-source lightweight operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed for providing infrastructure to clustered deployments. As an operating system, Container Linux provided only the minimal functionality required for deploying applications inside software containers, together with built-in mechanisms for service discovery and configuration sharing.
Red Hat contributed, with several software developers, toLibreOffice, afree and open-sourceoffice suite.[80] However, in 2023, Red Hat announced they were not going to include LibreOffice in RHEL 10, citing the ability to download LibreOffice fromFlatpak on RHEL desktops.[81]
Red Hat also organises "Open Source Day" events[82] where multiple partners show their open-source technologies.[83]
Red Hat is one of the largest contributors to theX Window System.[84][85]
Subscribers have access to:
Over and above Red Hat's major products and acquisitions, Red Hat programmers have produced software programming-tools andutilities to supplement standard Unix and Linux software. Some of these Red Hat "products" have found their way from specifically Red Hat operating environments via open-source channels to a wider community. Such utilities include:
sysreport) – tools for collecting information on system hardware and configuration.[90]The Red Hat website lists the organization's major involvements in free and open-source software projects.[94]
Community projects under the aegis of Red Hat include:
 | |
 Red Hat building inBrno | |
| Company type | Společnost s ručením omezeným (Limited Liability Company) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Predecessor | Container Linux Cygnus Solutions |
| Founded | 2006; 19 years ago (2006) |
| Headquarters | , |
| Revenue |
|
| |
| Total assets |
|
Number of employees | 1180 (2019) |
| Parent | Red Hat |
| Website | redhat |
| Footnotes / references [96] | |
Red Hat Czechs.r.o. is a research and development arm of Red Hat, based inBrno,Czech Republic.[96] The subsidiary was formed in 2006 and has 1,180 employees (2019).[97] Red Hat chose to enter the Czech Republic in 2006 over other locations due to the country's embrace ofopen-source.[98] The subsidiary expanded in 2017 to a second location in the Brno Technology Park to accommodate an additional 350 employees.[99]
In 2016, Red Hat Czech reported revenue of CZK 1,002 million (FY 2016), and net income of CZK 123 million (FY 2016), with assets of CZK 420 million (FY 2016)|CZK 325 million (FY 2015).
The group was named the "Most progressive employer of the year" in the Czech Republic in 2010,[100] and the "Best Employer in the Czech Republic" for large scale companies in 2011 byAon.[101]
In 2000, Red Hat created the subsidiaryRed Hat India to deliver Red Hat software, support, and services to Indian customers.[102] Colin Tenwick, former vice president and general manager of Red HatEMEA, said Red Hat India was opened "in response to the rapid adoption of Red Hat Linux in the subcontinent. Demand for open-source solutions from the Indian markets is rising and Red Hat wants to play a major role in this region."[102] Red Hat India has worked with local companies to enable the adoption of open-source technology in both government[103] and education.[104]
In 2006, Red Hat India had a distribution network of more than 70 channel partners spanning 27 cities across India.[105] Red Hat India's channel partners included MarkCraft Solutions, Ashtech Infotech Pvt Ltd., Efensys Technologies, Embee Software, Allied Digital Services, and Softcell Technologies. Distributors include Integra Micro Systems[106] andIngram Micro.
Red Hat's first major acquisition involved Delix Computer GmbH-Linux Div, theLinux-based operating-system division of Delix Computer, a German computer company, on July 30, 1999.
Red Hat acquiredCygnus Solutions, a company that provided commercial support forfree software, on January 11, 2000 – it was the company's largest acquisition, forUS$674 million.[107]Michael Tiemann, co-founder of Cygnus, served as thechief technical officer of Red Hat after the acquisition. Red Hat made the most acquisitions in 2000 with five: Cygnus Solutions,Bluecurve, Wirespeed Communications, Hell's Kitchen Systems, andC2Net. On June 5, 2006, Red Hat acquiredopen-source middleware provider JBoss forUS$420 million and integrated it as its own division of Red Hat.
On December 14, 1998, Red Hat made its firstdivestment, whenIntel andNetscape acquired undisclosed minority stakes in the company. The next year, on March 9, 1999,Compaq,IBM,Dell andNovell each acquired undisclosed minority stakes in Red Hat.
| Date | Company | Business | Country | Value (USD) | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 13, 1999 | Atomic Vision | Website design |  United States | — | [108][109] |
| July 30, 1999 | Delix Computer GmbH -Linux Div[note 1] | Computers and software |  Germany | — | [110] |
| January 11, 2000 | Cygnus Solutions Limited | gcc,gdb,binutils | United States | $674,444,000 | [111][107] |
| May 26, 2000 | Bluecurve | IT management software | United States | $37,107,000 | [112] |
| August 1, 2000 | Wirespeed Communications | Internet software | United States | $83,963,000 | [113] |
| August 15, 2000 | Hell's Kitchen Systems | Internet software | United States | $85,624,000 | [114] |
| September 13, 2000 | C2Net | Internet software | United States | $39,983,000 | [115] |
| February 5, 2001 | Akopia | Ecommerce software | United States | — | [116] |
| February 28, 2001 | Planning Technologies | Consulting | United States | $47,000,000 | [117] |
| February 11, 2002 | ArsDigita | Assets and employees | United States | — | [118] |
| October 15, 2002 | NOCpulse | Software | United States | — | [119] |
| December 18, 2003 | Sistina Software | GFS,LVM,DM | United States | $31,000,000 | [120] |
| September 30, 2004 | TheNetscape Security -Certain Asts[note 2] | Certain assets | United States | — | [121] |
| June 5, 2006 | JBoss | Middleware |  France | $420,000,000 | [122][123] |
| June 6, 2007 | MetaMatrix | Information management software | United States | — | [124] |
| June 19, 2007 | Mobicents | Telecommunications software | United States | — | [125] |
| March 13, 2008 | Amentra | Consulting | United States | — | [126] |
| June 4, 2008 | Identyx | Software | United States | — | [127] |
| September 4, 2008 | Qumranet | KVM,RHEV,SPICE |  Israel | $107,000,000 | [128] |
| November 30, 2010 | Makara | Enterprise software | United States | — | [129] |
| October 4, 2011 | Gluster | GlusterFS | United States | $136,000,000 | [130] |
| June 27, 2012 | FuseSource | Enterprise integration software | United States | — | [131] |
| August 28, 2012 | Polymita | Enterprise software |  Spain | — | [132] |
| December 20, 2012 | ManageIQ | Orchestration software | United States | $104,000,000 | [133] |
| January 7, 2014 | The CentOS Project | CentOS | United States | — | [134][135] |
| April 30, 2014 | Inktank Storage | Ceph | United States | $175,000,000 | [136] |
| June 18, 2014 | eNovance | OpenStack Integration Services | France | $95,000,000 | [137] |
| September 18, 2014 | FeedHenry | Mobile Application Platform |  Ireland | $82,000,000 | [138] |
| October 16, 2015 | Ansible | Configuration management, Orchestration engine | United States | — | [139] |
| June 22, 2016 | 3scale | API management | United States | — | [140] |
| May 25, 2017 | Codenvy | Cloud software | United States | — | [141] |
| July 31, 2017 | Permabit | Data deduplication and compression | United States | — | [142] |
| January 30, 2018 | CoreOS | Management of containerized application: Container Linux by CoreOS | United States | $250,000,000 | [143] |
| November 28, 2018 | NooBaa | Cloud storage technology | Israel | — | [144] |
| January 7, 2021 | StackRox | Container management software | United States | — | [145] |
| Date | Acquirer | Target company | Target business | Acquirer country | Value (USD) | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 14, 1998 | Intel Corporation | Red Hat[note 3] | Open-source software | United States | — | [146] |
| March 9, 1999 | Compaq | Red Hat[note 4] | Open-source software | United States | — | [147] |
| March 9, 1999 | IBM | Red Hat[note 5] | Open-source software | United States | — | [148] |
| March 9, 1999 | Novell | Red Hat[note 6] | Open-source software | United States | — | [149] |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)developed and maintained
In December of 2007, Red Hat made a formal product announcement of a product that supports some kinds of real-time extensions.[...] This product is called Red Hat MRG (Messaging, Real Time Grid) platform. The core component is a real-time enhanced kernel that replaces the normal kernel of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux product.
Using Tuna to perform advanced tuning procedures for the MRG Realtime component of the Red Hat Enterprise MRG distributed computing platform
Today officially marks 10 years of Opensource.com as a publication sharing free and open source stories.
Issue[:] How to register a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system to the Customer Portal using Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM)
Red Hat Subscription Manager works with Yum to unite content delivery with subscription management.
Top 10: Google, Red Hat, VMware, Microsoft, IBM, Huawei, Fujitsu, Intel, CNCF
Red Hat Developer Toolset is for developers on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform. It is a set of development and performance analysis tools that can be installed and used on multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. [...] Available through the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Program and related subscriptions, Red Hat Developer Toolset allows C, C++, and Fortran developers to compile and deploy to multiple versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
sos = son of sysreport (RHEL 4.6, 5.0 and newer)
Pulp [...] [a] Red Hat community project [...] a Python application for managing software repositories and their associated content, such as packages, errata, and distributions.
the opening of this office is in response to the rapid adoption of Red Hat Linux in the subcontinent. India is one of the leading software development countries in the world. Demand for open source solutions from the Indian markets is rising and Red Hat wants to play a major role in this region.
Open source has seen solid traction with enterprises in India. Not only has the Indian Government been at the forefront of adopting open source technologies, but Indian enterprises too have been avid users of open source software for mission-critical purposes," noted Kumar. He adds, "India's strong engineering credentials has made it an active contributor to the open source development engine. We look forward to working with the community and enterprises to take open source development and adoption to the next level in India.
Red Hat India has a distribution network of more than 70 channel partners, spanning 27 cities across India.
Open source leader enables a low-cost path to service-oriented architectures
| Android |
| ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arch | |||||||||||||||||
| Debian |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Fedora |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Gentoo | |||||||||||||||||
| Mandrake | |||||||||||||||||
| Mandriva | |||||||||||||||||
| Slackware | |||||||||||||||||
| SUSE | |||||||||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||||||||
| Discontinued |
| ||||||||||||||||
| History | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Products |
| ||||||||
| Business entities |
| ||||||||
| Facilities |
| ||||||||
| Initiatives | |||||||||
| Inventions | |||||||||
| Terminology | |||||||||
| CEOs |
| ||||||||
| Board of directors | |||||||||
| Other | |||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
