Red Hat facts for kids
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Red Hat Tower, the headquarters of Red Hat
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| Subsidiary (independent) | |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Founded | 1993 |
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| Headquarters |
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U.S.
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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List
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Red Hat Directory Server Fedora Linux Satellite Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Red Hat Storage Server JBoss EAP Red Hat Single Sign On Ansible CloudForms OpenShift Red Hat Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Virtualization Red Hat Certificate System Red Hat AMQ Red Hat Insights |
| Revenue |  US$3.4 billion (2018) |
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Operating income
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US$512 million (2018) |
| US$434 million (2018) |
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| Total assets | US$5.588 billion (2018) |
| Total equity | US$1.613 billion (2018) |
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Number of employees
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19,000 |
| Parent | IBM |
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Red Hat, Inc. is an American company that makes computer software. It focuses on open source software for businesses. Open source means the code is free for anyone to see and change.
Red Hat started in 1993 and is now part of IBM. Its main office is in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, but it has offices all over the world.
The company is well-known for its main operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They also offer other software like Red Hat Virtualization for creating virtual computers. Red Hat provides many services, including support, training, and advice for using their software.
Red Hat helps create and improve many free software projects. They have also bought other software companies and then made their products open source. By 2016, Red Hat was one of the biggest helpers for the Linux kernel, which is the core of the Linux operating system.
In 2018, IBM announced they would buy Red Hat for a huge amount of money. The deal was completed in 2019. Red Hat still runs as its own company, but it is now owned by IBM.
Contents
How Red Hat Started
In 1993, a man named Bob Young started a company called ACC Corporation. It sold accessories for Linux and Unix software by mail.
In 1994, another person, Marc Ewing, created his own version of Linux. He called it Red Hat Linux. He named it after a red Cornell University hat he used to wear. Ewing released his software in October, calling it the "Halloween release."
In 1995, Bob Young bought Ewing's business. They combined their companies to form Red Hat Software. Bob Young became the first CEO.
Growing Big
Red Hat became a public company on August 11, 1999. This means people could buy shares of the company on the stock market. It had one of the biggest first-day gains in Wall Street history at that time.
Later that year, Red Hat bought a company called Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus helped support free software projects like the GNU Debugger. One of Cygnus's founders, Michael Tiemann, became a top technical officer at Red Hat.
In February 2000, a magazine called InfoWorld gave Red Hat its "Operating System Product of the Year" award for the fourth time.
In 2002, Red Hat moved its main office to Raleigh, North Carolina. The next month, they launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Big computer companies like Dell, IBM, and HP supported this new software.
In 2005, Red Hat was named the top company for "value" in a survey for the second year in a row.
Joining Forces with JBoss
On June 5, 2006, Red Hat bought JBoss, a company that made "middleware" software. Middleware helps different computer programs work together. JBoss became a part of Red Hat.
In 2009, Red Hat joined the Standard and Poor's 500 stock index. This index includes 500 of the biggest companies in the U.S. economy. This was a big step for Linux software.
In 2011, Red Hat announced plans to make its headquarters bigger. They planned to add 540 new employees.
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In 2012, Red Hat became the first open-source company to earn over a billion dollars in a year. By 2015, they passed $2 billion in yearly earnings. By 2018, their yearly earnings were almost $3 billion.
In 2015, Red Hat bought a company called Ansible. Ansible makes software that helps automate IT tasks.
In 2018, Red Hat also bought CoreOS, a company focused on software containers.
Becoming Part of IBM
On October 28, 2018, IBM announced it would buy Red Hat for $34 billion. This was one of IBM's biggest purchases ever. Red Hat now works as part of IBM's Hybrid Cloud division. The deal was finalized on July 9, 2019.
The Fedora Project
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Red Hat is the main supporter of the Fedora Project. This project is a community of people who work together to create free software. Their goal is to quickly improve free and open-source software.
How Red Hat Works
Red Hat uses a special way of doing business. It's based on open-source software and teamwork. They develop software in a community, make sure it's good quality, and then sell subscriptions for support.
They make their software code open for everyone to see. This allows more programmers to help improve it.
Red Hat sells subscriptions for services like support and training. These services help customers use their open-source software. Customers pay one price for unlimited access to these services, sometimes even 24/7 support.
Cool Programs and Projects
One Laptop per Child
Red Hat engineers worked with the One Laptop per Child project. This project is a non-profit group that wanted to make cheap laptops. Their goal was to give every child in the world access to open communication and learning. The last laptop they made, the XO-4, used a simple version of Fedora 17 as its operating system.
KVM Virtualization
Red Hat helps develop KVM. KVM lets you run multiple operating systems on one computer at the same time. This is like having several virtual computers inside one physical computer.
GNOME Desktop
Red Hat is a big helper for the GNOME desktop environment. This is a popular way that the Linux computer screen looks and works. Many Red Hat employees work full-time on GNOME projects.
OpenShift Cloud Platform
Red Hat runs OpenShift, which is a "platform as a service" for cloud computing. This means it helps developers build, deploy, and manage applications in the cloud. It supports many programming languages like Node.js, PHP, and Java.
Red Hat is also a major contributor to Kubernetes. Kubernetes is a system that helps manage and run many software containers.
OpenStack Cloud Management
Red Hat also offers a version of OpenStack. OpenStack helps companies manage their data centers like a cloud. This makes it easier to handle large amounts of computer resources.
CloudForms Management
Red Hat CloudForms helps manage virtual machines and containers. It works with many different cloud services and virtualization tools. This software is based on the ManageIQ project, which Red Hat made open source.
Ceph Storage
Red Hat is a big contributor to Ceph Storage. Ceph is a special kind of storage software that works across many computers. It's designed to be very reliable and can store huge amounts of data. It also fixes itself and manages itself, which saves time for administrators.
LibreOffice Support
Red Hat used to help develop LibreOffice, which is a free and open-source office suite. It's like a free version of Microsoft Office. However, in 2023, Red Hat decided not to include LibreOffice in its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. Users can still get it from other sources.
Other Open Source Projects
Red Hat has employees who work on many other free and open-source projects. These are not always Red Hat's own products, but they help the wider open-source community.
Red Hat also organizes "Open Source Day" events. At these events, different companies show off their open-source technologies.
Useful Tools
Red Hat programmers have created many helpful tools for Unix and Linux. Some of these tools are now used by a wider community. They include:
- Disk Druid: A tool for organizing space on computer hard drives.
- rpm: A tool for managing software packages.
- SystemTap: A tool for checking how the Linux kernel is working.
- NetworkManager: A tool for managing network connections.
Red Hat Subsidiaries
Red Hat Czech
Red Hat building in Brno
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| Společnost s ručením omezeným (Limited Liability Company) | |
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | , |
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Number of employees
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1180 (2019) |
| Parent | Red Hat |
Red Hat Czech is a part of Red Hat that focuses on research and development. It is located in Brno, Czech Republic. This office started in 2006 and had 1,180 employees by 2019. Red Hat chose the Czech Republic because the country supported open-source software.
Red Hat India
In 2000, Red Hat started Red Hat India. This office helps deliver Red Hat software and support to customers in India. Red Hat opened this office because many people in India were starting to use Red Hat Linux. Red Hat India works with local companies to help spread open-source technology in schools and government.
Red Hat's Acquisitions
Red Hat has grown by buying other companies. This helps them get new technologies and talented people.
One of their first big purchases was Delix Computer GmbH-Linux Div in Germany in 1999.
On January 11, 2000, Red Hat bought Cygnus Solutions. This was their largest purchase at the time. Cygnus helped support free software like the GNU Compiler Collection.
On June 5, 2006, Red Hat bought JBoss, a company that made open-source middleware. This was another very important acquisition for Red Hat.
Red Hat has continued to buy companies that specialize in areas like cloud storage, container management, and automation.
Images for kids
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Red Hat Tower, the headquarters of Red Hat
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Red Hat Tower with earlier company logo
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Red Hat Tower with earlier company logo
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Fedora Project logo
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Red Hat Summit is an annual conference, here seen in 2019.
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Red Hat building in Brno
See also
In Spanish: Red Hat para niños
