Executive Offers Peek Under the Red Hat

Making money from “open source’’ software - computer programs available free of charge - once seemed crazy. But Red Hat Inc. has prospered by selling service and support for open source programs such as the Linux operating system. Although headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., most Red Hat software is engineered in Westford. Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president of products and technologies, spoke with Hiawatha Bray of the Globe staff about how his company brought open source into the mainstream.

How long has Red Hat been in Massachusetts, and why did you come?

I was the first Massachusetts employee - early 2001. At the time we were a completely retail, boxed product. We decided that there was a need to bring Linux to the [business] enterprise, to make Linux enterprise-class. I did a job fair up here. I had 1,500 people show up, 400 of which had some kind of kernel expertise. I did job fairs in other parts of the country, and I would get one or two.

Did you also tap the local universities for software talent?

The universities were one of the first to move to Linux. Linux was great as a teaching tool because you could see the source code. We hire engineers, and they’re 22, and they’ve been on Linux for 10 years.