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It's always been easy for programmers to get started with Linux. Just download one of the many free distros, learn some C, and you're in business.
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Learning how to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was a bit harder. Fortunately, Red Hat made it easy for developers to get started. In 2016, the Linux giant started offering free RHEL to members of its Red Hat Developer Program. Then, in 2021, after closing CentOS, Red Hat began offering free RHEL to small development teams. Now, Red Hat is unveiling a new offering, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers.
So, why yet another free offering? This program aims to make RHEL more accessible to business-focused development teams working outside traditional IT. This move, announced on July 9, 2025, aims to foster greater consistency between development and production environments while reducing friction across hybrid cloud IT estates. The goal is to ease the transition of applications into production and reduce operational friction between business groups and IT.
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As Gunnar Hellekson, Red Hat VP and general manager of RHEL, said in a statement: "Modern developers need to be able to move at their own pace to deliver innovative applications, but must do so without increasing friction with IT operations teams or production systems. RHEL for Business Developers helps empower developers with direct access to the world's leading enterprise Linux platform without having to move through centralized IT channels, giving them a more consistent, reliable foundation that aligns with the business's demands for production-readiness."
With this program, each registered Red Hat Developer Program user can run up to 25 physical, virtual, or cloud-based instances. Besides the Linux distribution, the package includes signed developer content featuring modern open-source programming languages, tools, and databases essential for next-generation enterprise applications.
Developers will also have full access to Podman Desktop. This is Red Hat's preferred tool for developing RHEL containers. This package includes the ability to create bootable container images.
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