Under the Radar: How Red Hat Changed the Software Business and Took Microsoft by Surprise

by Robert 'Bob' Young, Wendy Goldman Rohm

Young, CEO of Red Hat Inc., offers an insider's view of the investment deals that eventually led to Red Hat's IPO, and how Red Hat convinced Intel, Netscape, Compaq, Dell, Oracle, SAP and Novell to support the Linux open source operating system.

Genres: Business, Technology, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 1999

Reviews

[Joe White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book with a strong financial orientation since it really aims to detail circumstances leading to Red Hat's IPO. Consequently, those not interested in corporate Angel investing and creation funding for new companies will not see the merits of the book, and will find it very hard to get past the initial chapters, which deal with the financial perspective. Technology is covered from a historical perspective of generalities, such as the fragmentation of Unix, forking projects, source control management, and open source project commit control.
This book was written and published in 1999 at the height of the NASDAQ bubble. Some of the optimistic financial projections are therefore interesting from a historical perspective.
The actual interchange between the large computer companies, which included a mix of hardware and software, was one of the three points that made the book worthwhile to me. I knew that Microsoft has really been a bad villain in creating a monopoly and has been a thorn to IBM, but was surprised that Intel played such a significant role in fostering Red Hat.
The role of Netscape was also outlined far better here than I have seen elsewhere. The significance of the browser and the predictions of using it on numerous appliance devices could have been written two weeks ago. The foreshadowing of Android could have been written this summer.
The influential software creators and developers and their role in the history of certain products or in the legal creation of patent free releases is a very contemporary subject. The mention of how Sun failed to open source Java and was seen as a problem ten years ago, really rings a note now that Oracle has wiped out the notion of an open source Java product and is suing Google over the JVM-Dalvik patenting.
It is also interesting to reflect on the companies that appeared to be unapproachably successful in 1999, such as Yahoo, have now declined and have either been absorbed by other companies or make regular financial headlines as take over targets. Combaq as an entity is gone. Dell is only alive because it is being propped up by Intel, Oracle has become a powerhouse of a vertical marketer through acquisition and consolidation. Google wasn't even mentioned, as it was a new and tiny company in 1999.

[Stephen Wellbow · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm generally interested in this book's subject matter and looked forward to reading it: however, it came off as dry when addressing Red Hat's growth and IPO, then scattershot and unfocused as it dealt with tangentially-related companies such as Netscape for chapters on end.

Though there is definitely an intriguing story behind the rise of Red Hat, the author may have documented it a little early for its own good, as the company (and the free and open-source software world in general) has grown exponentially since the book's 1999 release. This results in a text that holds more value as a historical curiosity or reference for early Red Hat dealings than a genuinely appealing read in the present day.

[Jeff Kinsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE 03/02/2010

Great stuff about the first few rounds of capital and the battle to get a piece of those early rounds. Including Intel's insistence that they not get forced to wait for a later round.

Very readable. Covering a lot of elapsed time, but yet a fair amount of detail revealed. Especially the key people involved.

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As Young points out in the first few pages, this book is not about technology. It is about a business model. "Selling" free software. More nuggets as I uncover them.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this right after reading Behind the Cloud - two different game changing business models and two very different individuals. I'd say this book is less polished, but I also feel Young is more self aware than Benioff is in his book. The marketing veneer was off and Young openly discussed the business model, how it affected others (not just his customers,) and the many challenges the open source movement has had.

You have to be interested in the concept of open source and the challenge it set out to overcome to get into this book. If you are, you'll enjoy it.

[Graham Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This only took a couple of (delayed) train journeys to read. It's a succinct presentation of how Young believes that the growth and investment in Red Hat in the mid-late 1990s is a validation of the "open source business model". There's really interesting information about the involvement of Intel, the Microsoft DoJ case and the parallel release of Netscape's source. On the other hand, the book is ignorant of the industry context, and the general ease with which anyone in tech could ask for money in the mid 1990s.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whilst mainly about Red Hat's creation, it's got some nice background on Linus, RMS, GPL vs MPL and the like.

A bit dated now, as it was released in 1999 and a lot has changed since then ("Java Script [sic] was a non-starter on the server side and what we should have done is got behind Perl in a significant way" - oh how the tables have turned!), it's still a great origin story of Unix, the companies it helped establish, how to make money selling OSS and the GPL vs Proprietary debate.