Open-source software company Red Hat has released its fiscal earnings for 2012, which total $1.3 billion. This marks the first time that a company that focuses on open-source software has managed to crack the $1 billion mark for annual revenue, and also puts Red Hat well ahead of its competition, with runner-up SUSE sitting at reported sales of around $170 million. Red Hat develops its own brand of Linux, but also sells software to the enterprise community, including Linux server and cloud computing solutions.

The company managed to earn $297 million in revenue in its fourth fiscal quarter, a 21 percent jump from a year ago. It's also slightly more than the $290 million it managed to pull in last quarter. While Red Hat is well ahead of its competition, reaching such a lofty milestone proves that going open-source is definitely a viable route for the software business. Considering how many Android phones are out there, it's entirely possible that the net value to Google in revenue generated by its own Linux-based ecosystem is even higher — but Red Hat's milestone as a pure Linux vendor is notable in its own right.