“Red Hat Inc. co-founder Marc Ewing planted the roots for Red
Hat software in 1993, while studying computer science at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh.”
“Ewing, 29, was looking for a cheaper alternative to Unix, and
found it in Linux. He began repackaging the software and selling
enough copies so that he could pursue his hacking hobby and still
pay the rent.”
…
“A year later, he ran into Bob Young, now the company’s CEO.
Young was running a computer mail order catalog, and had heard
about Red Hat from some customers. He called Ewing and offered to
buy 500 copies of Red Hat, nearly all that Ewing had produced.”