The open-source entrepreneur

[Basil Chupin]

Bob Young is a self-confessed contrarian with a strong desire to change 
the world by allowing people to share and collaborate. The approach has 
served him well and has helped turn the Canadian into a multi-millionaire.

 From the outset, his software company Red Hat <http://www.redhat.com> 
bucked the trend set by the big players like Microsoft which stubbornly 
guarded every line of code and charged whopping fees to maintain it.

Red Hat's approach was unusual at the time and relied on free software 
developed by an open-source community. Customers were given the right to 
change the code any way they liked and Red Hat sold services to make 
sure it all worked.

In those early 1990s, many businesses feared that open source would not 
be stable and often opted for the proprietary model being sold by the 
likes of Microsoft. Today, the Redmond giant has seen its market share 
erode; Red Hat has become the world's open-source leader.

...................................

By 2000, the company had captured 25% of the server operating system 
market, and Red Hat held over 50% of the global market for Linux 
systems. Today. it is the largest distributor of the Linux operating 
system..........





http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/maggieshiels/2010/06/the_open_source_entrepreneur.html

-- 
Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
                                            James Madison

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