Red Hat's business model

An open source software and applications expert says that Red Hat has nothing to fear from free Linux distros; reliability and certainty are the cornerstones of its commercial support.

Bernard Golden

ActiveState
Published: 07 Jun 2007

How does Red Hat's business model enable it to survive selling commercial Linux support when there are discounts, free versions out there, etc.?

Red Hat sells reliability and certainty about a collection of programs, not the collection itself. While there are a multitude of Linux distros available for no fee, not all of them come with certified apps, support, etc. I don't think Red Hat is particularly worried about competition from free Linux distros.

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