Bob Young, co-founder and former chief executive of Red Hat, has decided to resign from the company. 

Young headed the open source firm as chief executive for four years, stepping down in 1999 in favour of current head Matthew Szulik. He also owns Canadian football team the Hamilton Tiger Cats in his home state of Ontario. 

"In a funny way, my resignation is perhaps the finest compliment I can pay to everyone associated with Red Hat today," said Young on his departure. "I have complete confidence in the future of the company."

Young intends to spend his time developing another of his ventures, Lulu.com, which applies open source methods to book publishing, allowing authors to submit and sell content in exchange for a small fee.