How a Biochemist's Linux Hobby Became the Enterprise Default

Gregory Kurtzer, a biochemist turned Linux enthusiast, tells The Register how CentOS emerged in 2004 from community anger over Red Hat Enterprise Linux replacing the free Red Hat Linux. Drawing on infrastructure from his Caos project and collaboration with other RHEL rebuild efforts like White Box and Tao Linux, Kurtzer's team created the one-to-one compatible clone that became the de facto enterprise standard. The retrospective explains how early rebuilders consolidated around CentOS and why Kurtzer believes Red Hat's subscription model practically guaranteed a free alternative would thrive.