Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT) announced today the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Red Hat Center for Open Source (RHCOS), that will sponsor, support, promote and engage in a wide range of scientific and educational projects intended to advance the social principles of open source for the greater good of the general public. Led by an impressive group of influential leaders with backgrounds in technology, law, business and research, RHCOS will foster projects that advance the philosophy of open source, through which collaborative intellectual pursuits produce results to be freely shared and enhanced throughout society. Red Hat, Inc. co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Marc Ewing will devote considerable time and effort to the new organization as a Founding Director.
"The open source software movement has been successful because it has provided unprecedented control and quality to users, and at the same time enabled a model for cooperative development of technology that leveraged the expertise of the global community," said Ewing. "The implications of this model when applied outside of software development are enormous, and the benefits to society will be huge. Advancing this global cooperative model for the development of technologies and ideas is what RHCOS is all about."
"We have formed RHCOS because we believe that the philosophy and practice of open development can benefit many other parts of society," said Bob Young, co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Red Hat, Inc. and also a Founding Director of the RHCOS. "Today, much advanced research and intellectual pursuit is funded by private industry for proprietary purposes. The time is right to introduce an approach that will seed new advances and foster innovation for everyone's benefit." In addition to Ewing and Young, the Board of Directors for RHCOS includes well-known innovators and thought leaders. Board members include:
- John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). His personal research interests include digital culture, ubiquitous computing, user-centering design and organizational and individual learning. A major focus of Brown's research over the years has been in human learning and the management of radical innovation.
- John Gilmore, entrepreneur and free software pioneer. The architect of the first Sun workstations, Gilmore is a co-founder of Cygnus Solutions, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a leading advocate for intellectual freedom.
- Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, comparative constitutional law and the law of cyberspace.
- Sim B. Sitkin, PhD, Associate Professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Professor Sitkin's teaching interests include managerial effectiveness, organizational behavior, organization design, organizational control and the management of organizational change.
RHCOS will initially be funded with $8 million in a combination of cash and Red Hat common stock donated by Red Hat, Inc. and three founding investors of Red Hat: Young; Ewing; and Frank Batten, Chief Executive Officer of Landmark Communications. Details regarding grant criteria and the application process are currently being determined by the Board of Directors and will be released at a later date.
About the Red Hat Center for Open Source
The Red Hat Center for Open Source is an independent, non-profit organization that works to advance the social principles of open source for the greater good. RHCOS serves as a funding source and incubator for projects developed under the open source philosophy - freely sharing intellectual value for the good of society. Headquartered in Durham, N.C. , RHCOS provides society with a counterbalance to restricted, proprietary practices in technology, research, law, health and sciences. For more information, see http://www.redhat.com/community/rh_center.html or email center@redhat.com.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high quality, low cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides operating system software along with middleware, applications and management solutions. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's open source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com
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- About Red Hat
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
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