Red Hat Joins Industry Vendors as a Founding Member of the GNOME Foundation
Foundation to Reinforce and Advance GNOME as the World's Leading Open-source Desktop Environment
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.-August 15, 2000-Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT),
the leader in open source Internet infrastructure solutions, today
announced it has joined the GNOME project and top industry vendors
including Compaq, Eazel, Helix Code, IBM, Sun Microsystems and VA Linux
Systems to form the GNOME Foundation, a non-profit, unified group of
vendors and individuals dedicated to advancing the use and extending the
capabilities of the popular GNOME graphical user environment.
The GNOME (GNU Network Object Modeling Environment) project is an open
source, GUI-based user interface for Linux designed to run on all modern
versions of UNIX-like operating systems. Since its development, GNOME has
quickly become one of the world's leading, free and simple desktop
environments.
Red Hat will assist the GNOME Foundation in leading the technical
direction of the continuing GNOME project, offering forums for industry
leaders to contribute to GNOME and in promoting the benefits of GNOME. The
GNOME Foundation will provide organizational and financial support for
GNOME and related open source projects.
"Red Hat has played an integral part in the development of code and
support for GNOME," said Bob Young, chairman and co-founder of Red Hat,
Inc. "As one of the key founders of the GNOME Foundation, Red Hat is
dedicated to working with others in advancing this powerful application
framework and promoting it as the desktop environment of the future."
About the GNOME Foundation
The GNOME Foundation provides organizational, financial and legal support
to the GNOME project. The foundation will help determine the vision and
roadmap for GNOME. It will also assist in creating technical standards,
coordinate GNOME releases, and determine which software projects are part
of GNOME. The foundation will make public statements and administer funds
on behalf of the GNOME project. The Foundation will be incorporated as a
membership-based, not-for-profit corporation.
You are invited to participate in the GNOME Foundation. We welcome
contributions in many forms. Our membership consists of those individuals
who have demonstrated a commitment to the development of GNOME through
participation in the development, documentation and promotion of GNOME.
The Advisory Board provides a vehicle for organizations and companies to
communicate with the GNOME community and support GNOME. Additional
information is available at: http://www.gnome.org.
Joining Red Hat in the GNOME Foundation is Collab.net, Compaq, Debian,
Eazel, Free Software Foundation, Gnumatic, Helix Code, Henzai, Inc., IBM,
Sun Microsystems, and VA Linux Systems.
Open source momentum
International Data Corp. (IDC) research states that paid Linux shipments
grew faster than any other server operating system over the past two
years, and their preliminary figures for 1999 show Linux shipments hold
24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998.
IDC also states that Red Hat Linux is by far the most popular
distribution, preferred by 68.7 percent of U.S. Linux users.
Research firm Netcraft, Inc. (www.netcraft.com), states that as of May
2000, 36 percent of all public Web sites run on Linux-based operating
systems, making Linux the most popular choice for deploying public Web
sites. IDC research shows 40 percent of all spending on Linux servers is
for Internet related applications, firmly entrenching Linux servers in the
Internet infrastructure.
Finally, IDC predicts that by 2002, there will be more than 55 million
handheld and notebook-style information appliance devices and that by
2005, shipments of these appliances will exceed shipments of PCs.
Red Hat's numerous alliances with industry leaders and the demand for
Linux-based applications has created open source support from many of the
industry's leading software and hardware manufacturers, including Compaq,
Computer Associates, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Netscape, Novell,
Oracle and SAP.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Founded in 1994, Red Hat (Nasdaq:RHAT) is the leading provider of open
source Internet infrastructure solutions, ranging from small embedded
devices to high availability clusters and Web serving. Red Hat applies its
technological leadership to create open source solutions for Internet
infrastructure and post-PC environments, offers services backed by the
best understanding of open source and the most comprehensive resources,
delivers the brand of a widely trusted open source leader and corporate
partner, and persists in an indelible commitment to the virtues of open
source to lead a revolution in the computing industry.
Red Hat, Inc. is based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. and has offices
worldwide. Visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com. For investor
inquiries, contact Lippert/Heilshorn at (212) 838-3777.
Red Hat Europe was established in July 1999 with its European headquarters
based in Surrey, United Kingdom and offices throughout Europe.
Forward-looking statements
Forward-looking statements in this press release are made pursuant to the
safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of
1934. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release that
are not strictly historical statements, including, without limitation,
management's plans and objectives for future operations and management's
assessment of market factors, constitute forward-looking statements which
involve risks and uncertainties.These risks and uncertainties include,
without limitation, product plans and performance, the ability to continue
to develop the Linux kernel and other software, reliance upon strategic
relationships, Red Hat's dependence upon an open source business model,
reliance upon independent third-party Linux developers, management of
growth, expansion of Red Hat's business focus and operations, the
possibility of undetected software errors, the enforceability of the GNU
General Public License and other licenses under which Red Hat's products
are developed and licensed, the scarcity of Linux-based applications, the
risks of economic downturns generally, and in Red Hat's industry
specifically, the risks associated with competition and competitive
pricing pressures, the viability of the Internet, and other risks detailed
in Red Hat's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies
of which may be accessed through the SEC's Web site at http://www.sec.gov.
|
