Red Hat Linux History1968
ARPANET founded. The
precursor to the Internet, it allows researchers to share code and information.
1969
Ken Thompson, researcher at
Bell Labs, writes the first version of Unix.
1979
AT&T announces plans to
commercialize Unix.
1983
Richard Stallman establishes
the Free Software Foundation at MIT. The GNU project to construct an operating
system based on Unix but for which the source code is freely available, begins.
Stallman also establishes the idea of "copyleft" and the General Public
License (GPL).
1987
Andrew Tanenbaum releases
Minix, a version of Unix for the PC, Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST. Source code
included.
1989
Michael Tiemann (Red Hat Vice
President, Open Source Affairs) co-founds Cygnus Solutions, the first business
to provide custom engineering and support services for free software.
1991
Linus Torvalds releases the
Linux kernel.
Bob Young introduced to free
software and UNIX by the system administrators of the New York City UNIX Users
Group (Unigroup).
1993
Young incorporates ACC
Corporation, a catalog business that sells Linux and Unix software accessories
and books and distributes a magazine called New York UNIX
1994
Marc Ewing creates his own
distribution of Linux which he names Red Hat Linux. Released in October, it becomes
known as the Halloween release.
1995
Young buys Ewing's business,
merges it with ACC Corporation, and names the new company Red Hat Software.
Red Hat Linux 2.0 is
released, officially unveils the new package management system called RPM.
1996
Red Hat opens sales and
administration functions to North Carolina, opens corporate headquarters in
Durham.
1997
January
Greylock and August Capital
invest $6.25 million in Cygnus Solutions, become first VCs to invest in a free
software business.
May
Eric Raymond delivers
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar" at the Linux Kongress in Germany.
The Red Hat training model
and the term "Red Hat Certified Engineer" are first developed as the
benchmark for technical skills required of Red Hat Support Partners worldwide.