CEO of RedHat: Google and Facebook are not available without open source

The US tech blog BusinessInsider recently interviewed Jim whitehirst, CEO of RedHat, and said that open-source applications are almost everywhere today, and technology companies, banks, and stock exchanges are all using them. Without open source, Google and Facebook cannot survive. The following is an interview transcript: Q: How do you answer "What is Linux? A: Linux is the first model of user-driven innovation. It has created such a large scale and quantity of internal

The US tech blog BusinessInsider recently interviewed Jim whitehust, CEO of RedHat, and said that open-source applications are almost everywhere today, technology companies, banks, and stock exchanges are all used. Without open source, Google and Facebook cannot survive. The following is an interview record:

Q: How do you answer "What is Linux?

A: Linux is the first example of user-driven innovation. It creates such a large amount of content. Think about its more than 10 million lines of code to know, and there is a lot of user innovation. In the information age, for the reason of open source, companies such as Intel, Google, and Amazon saw many innovations from users for the first time.

Q: What role does RedHat play in the Linux World?

A: We are the catalyst in the community and the biggest contributor to Linux, but we have contributed less than 20% of the content. We work with companies and institutions such as Google, Facebook, banking and stock exchanges. In the paid Linux market, we have a 80% share. Therefore, we are the main manufacturer of Linux commercialization.

Q: Is the economy promoting the development of open source or hindering its development?

A: open source is a huge economic beneficiary. It is not just a Software category, but a manufacturing system that creates software. The software market is up to $20 billion. I am not concerned about how the market grows. I am concerned about how much share we can win in the market.

Q: many people do not realize that cloud computing service providers such as Google and Amazon are so dependent on Linux. Do you think the brand awareness of Linux is fully recognized?

A: It doesn't matter. Not only Linux, but the entire open-source industry forms a typical cloud computing environment. Google cannot exist if it is not open source, as does Facebook. Therefore, I do not care about the popularity of Linux, as long as you know.

Q: What do you want more people to know about Linux?

A: almost every major stock exchange is using Linux, and 50% of global transactions are on the Linux platform. Some people do not use Linux because it is too cheap because it is the most reliable. We sell Linux with the slogan "cheap but easy to use", but some people think that "it is just a product that is crazy to use. It is a cheap product ." But in fact, the world's most technical people are using Linux. You cannot use Windows for critical tasks. Submarine, missile defense system and stock exchange all adopt high-end intel processing and Linux systems.

Q: What about Gluster? (Note: RedHat announced the acquisition of cloud storage software company Gluster for $0.136 billion on Tuesday)

A: We are excited by the explosive growth of data in storage. Smartphones consume data, but they also create a large amount of data. By 2020, the amount of data will increase to 40 times as much. Therefore, we see the huge demand for software storage, which is why we acquired Gluster.

Q: What are the differences between the Red Hat business model?

A: innovation is a fundamental change. One advantage of open source is that enterprises can create business models based on the diversity of open source, rather than being single. The global economic model is based on singularity. For example, books rely on copyrights to make profits. While open source is different. richness is one of its characteristics. People can add content to open source.

Among software companies, the annual revenue is less than $1 billion. We are an open-source software company. Revenue for this fiscal year is expected to reach $1.1 billion, and will increase by 20% each year.

Q: Are you surprised at the annual revenue of $1 billion, or are you sure you want to take it for granted?

A: This has become an inevitable trend in the last two to three years. When I joined RedHat three years ago, our customers mainly engaged in stock exchanges, telecommunications companies, and some technical experts. At that time, we did not expect to win customers from mainstream companies. Today, open source is almost everywhere. With its high performance and low price advantages, the annual revenue has exceeded $1 billion.