It was fashionable in the late 90s dot com bubble to give stock to Linus Torvalds and other open source luminaries before your Linux company went public.
In 1999 Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. That same year both companies went public and Torvalds' share value temporarily shot up to roughly $20 million
In 1999 Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading developers of Linux-based software, presented Torvalds with stock options in gratitude for his creation. That same year both companies went public and Torvalds' share value temporarily shot up to roughly $20 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
See also http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/1999121000105NWLF