Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) is one of the largest and most recognized companies dedicated to open source software. It is also the largest distributor of the GNU/Linux operating system. Red Hat was founded in 1993 and has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.
The Red Hat Society is a social organization for women. Members over 50 wear red hats and purple clothes whereas younger members wear pink hat and lavander clothes. The Society was founded in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, California, and she serves as the organization’s current Queen. As of October 2006 there are about 1.5 million registered members in over forty thousand chapters in the United States and thirty other countries. The Society takes its name from the opening lines of the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph, which starts:
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.”
