Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Chair of Entrepreneurial and Behavioral Decision Making

Professor Dr. Christian D. Schade

Economics of Entrepreneurship

Tutorial

Case Study Robert Young and Red Hat Inc.

Linux

It was the year 1991, Microsoft had just brought with its Windows 3.0 the first usable

version of a graphic user interface for the operating system DOS, and a PC with a 386

processor and 5 MB working memory was considered a luxury. In this seemingly

prehistoric time the University of Helsinki offered for the first time Unix Courses for its

informatics students. One of these students was so enthusiastic about this operating

system (which was more advanced than DOS), that he wanted to use it at home.

Unfortunately he did not have either the financial resources for a workstation computer

or for a Unix License. So he started to program a core operating system that would work

on his 386 computer. In August he presented his efforts for the first time in a discussion

group on the Internet and got an encouraging feed-back. In November the Version 0.01

of the Linux Kernel was made public. Indeed, it was not yet appropriate for work, but this

was about to change soon. Linux had been developed under the General Public License, a

license which allowed everyone to get the software and modify it, as long as all changes

were made available to the public. This way a large number of developers were involved

in the expansion of the operating system. The installation of a Linux system was,

however, not trivial, and remained a tool for computer professionals.

But this started to change as people with a nose for business recognized the great

potential behind the system. People like Robert Young.

Robert F. Young

Born on January 19th, 1954 in Hamilton in the Canadian province Ontario, Bob Young

finished his study of history at the University of Toronto with honours and started

working in sales of writing machines and leasing of computers. In the year 1984 he

became self-employed with Vernon Rentals & Leasing Inc. in Stanford, Connecticut.

Case Study Robert Young Red Hat Inc

Economics of Entrepreneurship (70641)