Novell today claimed to have more certified software partners than rival Linux providers. The chest pumping represents Novell’s latest thinly veiled attack against Red Hat. But take a closer look at Novell’s claims and you’ll see why Red Hat may take issue with some of Novell’s statements.

Fujitsu and open source software company Red Hat have expanded their global alliance to provide Linux support services to extend the bug fix support periods for the update releases 5.2 and 5.3 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux software.

While I remain in agreement with many observers who see the economic downturn as potentially very positive for open source, I have to wonder whether we're going to see some of the leadership open source companies swallowed up in all the financial carnage.

The question of whether business can co-exist with free and open source software (FOSS) was settled long ago. It can, and not only successful companies like Red Hat but also the willingness of venture capitalists to fund FOSS business models proves the case.

If you think about where Linux is fighting for market and mind-share, chances are you're thinking about Linux slugging it out with Microsoft Windows or Sun Solaris on the server, or trying to tear desktop customers away from Windows, and to a far lesser extent, from Mac OS X.

Hard economic times have just about everyone looking for ways to save. Belts are tightening around software budgets -- from ordinary personal computer users to enterprise decision makers, everyone's trying to figure out how they can get what they need for less money. Is this an opportunity for open source software and the firms that support it?

Over time, people tend to accumulate a large number of messages in various email accounts, most of which they never bother with again. The problem is particularly acute for administrator accounts that receive routine notifications of events that are viewed, if at all, no more than once.