It depends where you want to set the goalposts for a major phenomenon. Linus moved to the US in 1997 to work for Transmeta, while Linux hit 1.0 in 1994, and Red Hat got its start in 1993. The dot com boom was in full swing in 1999 when Red Hat went public. The rise of Linux really does parallel the rise of the public internet, which first became public in 1994.