[mattzito]

It's not just the support agreements (though support agreements didn't hurt). It's that RHEL provided the sort of stable path for patches and upgrades that Linux traditionally did not, moving as quickly as it did.

It allowed ISVs to certify their software packages against a consistent OS built, hardware vendors to utiliza a long-term consistent driver interface, and end-users to not have to worry about upgrade cycles, sudden performance changes, and so on.

Basically it gave enterprises that had been dependent on Solaris and the like a comparable Linux alternative.