Red Hat Center for Open Source

Red Hat, Inc. has announced the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Red Hat Center for Open Source (RHCOS), that will sponsor, support, promote and engage in a wide range ofscientific and educational projects intended to advance the social principles of open source for the greater good of the general public. RHCOS will foster projects that advance the philosophy of open source, through which collaborative intellectual pursuits produce results to be freely shared and enhanced throughout society. Red Hat, Inc. co-founder Marc Ewing will devote considerable time and effort to the new organization as a Founding Director.

In addition to Ewing and Young, the Board of Directors for RHCOS includes well-known innovators and thought leaders. Board members include:

John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). His personal research interests include digital culture, ubiquitous computing, user-centering design and organizational and individual learning. A major focus of Brown's research over the years has been in human learning and the management of radical innovation.
John Gilmore, entrepreneur and free software pioneer. The architect of the first Sun workstations, Gilmore is a co-founder of Cygnus Solutions, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a leading advocate for intellectual freedom.
Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, comparative constitutional law and the law of cyberspace.
Sim B. Sitkin, PhD, Associate Professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Professor Sitkin's teaching interests include managerial effectiveness, organizational behavior, organization design, organizational control and the management of organizational change.

RHCOS will initially be funded with $8 million in a combination of cash and Red Hat common stock donated by Red Hat, Inc. and three founding investors of Red Hat: Young; Ewing; and Frank Batten, Chief Executive Officer of Landmark Communications. Details regarding grant criteria and the application process are currently being determined by the Board of Directors and will be released at a later date.

For more information, email center@redhat.com.