Red Hat CEO Whitehurst: Open Source Better, Faster
After a year as its head, Jim Whitehurst has issued a financial assessment of the Red Hat Linux distro and spoke of its future plans. He sees the company braced for success, with an advantage over its proprietary competitors, thanks to Open Source.
Whitehurst quotes increased sales in 2008 for Red Hat, with a clear nod to a continuing rosy future with Open Source. Not to be over-modest, he calls his recent press release the "State of the Union at Red Hat." The yearly results gave him reason for optimism: "In fiscal year 2008, Red Hat became the first open source vendor to cross the $500 million mark in revenues and we’ve also maintained 27 consecutive quarters of sequential growth in total revenue." In December he had already prognosticated opportunities for Open Source despite the current economic climate in an interview with Linux Magazine Online. He now sees his forecast confirmed: "With the current economic downturn, IT budgets are shrinking while expectations for performance, quality and innovation continue to grow... I continue to see great opportunities for... the open source community."
It is just this community of proponents of a steady give-and-take that the former CEO of Delta Airlines considers the crux of the competitive advantage: "I’ve met with customers and partners all over the world during the past 13 months and have heard great stories about companies who are not only consumers of Red Hat and open source, but who have also contributed back." Whitehurst plans to use these relationships "to develop solutions that serve real needs and solve real problems." He acknowledges that two Red Hat acquisitions were particularly welcome in this respect: virtualization vendor Qumranet in September 2008 and system integrator Amentra earlier in March of that year. Whitehurst summarizes with, "While Red Hat may be small in comparison to the proprietary giants we challenge, our open source culture promotes the free exchange of ideas and enables us to deliver better software, faster."
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
The GNU Project Celebrates Its 40th Birthday
September 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the GNU Project, and it was celebrated with a hacker meeting in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
-
Linux Kernel Reducing Long-Term Support
LTS support for the Linux kernel is about to undergo some serious changes that will have a considerable impact on the future.
-
Fedora 39 Beta Now Available for Testing
For fans and users of Fedora Linux, the first beta of release 39 is now available, which is a minor upgrade but does include GNOME 45.
-
Fedora Linux 40 to Drop X11 for KDE Plasma
When Fedora 40 arrives in 2024, there will be a few big changes coming, especially for the KDE Plasma option.
-
Real-Time Ubuntu Available in AWS Marketplace
Anyone looking for a Linux distribution for real-time processing could do a whole lot worse than Real-Time Ubuntu.
-
KSMBD Finally Reaches a Stable State
For those who've been looking forward to the first release of KSMBD, after two years it's no longer considered experimental.
-
Nitrux 3.0.0 Has Been Released
The latest version of Nitrux brings plenty of innovation and fresh apps to the table.
-
Linux From Scratch 12.0 Now Available
If you're looking to roll your own Linux distribution, the latest version of Linux From Scratch is now available with plenty of updates.
-
Linux Kernel 6.5 Has Been Released
The newest Linux kernel, version 6.5, now includes initial support for two very exciting features.
-
UbuntuDDE 23.04 Now Available
A new version of the UbuntuDDE remix has finally arrived with all the updates from the Deepin desktop and everything that comes with the Ubuntu 23.04 base.