what is the reference to the "Red Hat" in the Red Hat Linux company?

Hello.

"Red Hat" is a reference to a red Cornell University lacrosse cap
given to company founder Marc Ewing by his grandfather.

Sources:

From Businessweek:
"The duo launched Red Hat Software -- named after the Cornell
lacrosse-team cap Ewing inherited from his grandfather -- and set up
shop in Ewing's apartment."
http://www.businessweek.com/ebiz/9906/em0630.htm

From Linux Magazine:
Ewing, like his father, had worked for IBM prior to starting Red Hat,
which was named after his grandfather's favorite old red Cornell
lacrosse team cap. Ewing used to wear the cap between classes while a
student in Carnegie Mellon's computer science program.
http://www.linux-mag.com/who/lmwho_2.html

From ZDnet news:
"He named his venture Red Hat, after the Cornell lacrosse team cap he
got from his grandfather. 'The real story is that it was red- and
white-striped,' said Ewing, who wore the cap regularly until he lost
it. 'But Red- and White-striped Hat didn't sound like a good name for
a company.'"
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-514446.html?legacy=zdnn

From the Washington Post:
" He spent years of hard work on Red Hat, which he named after a
Cornell lacrosse team cap he found in his grandfather's closet."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-03/15/162l-031500-idx.html

From Business Leader:
" In 1993 when Marc Ewing, co-founder and chief technology officer of
Red Hat, first started Red Hat a name based on an old red and white
Cornell lacrosse cap his grandfather gave him."
http://www.businessleader.com/bl/jan00/cover.html

search strategy: "red hat," "named after," "marc ewing," "cornell
lacrosse"

I hope this helps.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by that_paul-ga on 07 Oct 2002 13:15 PDT

This is an authoritative answer.  5 stars, two thumbs up.

How did you hit upon "named after" as a search term?

It seems that you must either have had prior knowledge that the
founder was marc ewing, or you iteratively went deeper into the
google-sphere upon each search return.

---

Clarification of Answer by juggler-ga on 07 Oct 2002 13:31 PDT

It's been a couple days now, so I can't remember the exact sequence of
my search. I think I started by looking for information about the
founding of Red Hat (e.g, searched for "red hat founder" or something
like that). Once I came up with the name "Marc Ewing," I tossed in the
"named after" terms. It's a combination of intuition and experience. I
figured that if some mention of Marc Ewing's choice of name was out
there, it would say something along the lines of "Red Hat is named
after..." or "The company was named after...." etc.

This is an authoritative answer, with ample documentation for fact-checkers.