The Strange Roots

Red Hat 🧢

Red Hat, the software company bought by IBM for $34 billion in 2019, takes its name from co-founder Marc Ewing.

The story goes that Ewing always wore his grandfather's red Cornell University lacrosse cap while studying at Carnegie Mellon University and would name all of his software projects 'Red Hat'. Ewing would also become the person that students would go to ith computer problems. Red Hat co-founder Bob Young recalled: "Friends would say, 'You should talk with my friend Marc.' 'Who's Marc?' 'He's the guy in the red hat,' " Young said. "So, at least among his immediate friends, red hats became synonymous with technical expertise."

Ewing would later create his own Linux distribution called Red Hat Linux which was bought by Young in 1995. He merged it with his own business to create Red Hat Software, adopting the name and association that Ewing had carried with him since university.

Source: Ever wonder how Red Hat got its name?