"...Novell Inc. has been the biggest donor as much for political as social reasons. Since acquiring Ximian and SuSE Linux, Novell's future is infinitely tied to Linux and donations like YaST and the Ximian Connector to open source have important ramifications for the company's business.

By sending these tools to the community, enterprises can not only download and deploy them in their IT environments, but hackers can also mold and tweak the software for the benefit of all –- including Novell.

'By and large, I think you're going to see contributions in the form of tools that are helpful to the development of their IP, but not the IP itself,' said Linux expert and author Steve Shah of the numerous donors. 'For example, a company that uses an open source tool for testing or as a foundation to their product will generally find it to their benefit to submit those changes back to the community. Not only do others benefit, but others will be able to make improvements and continue the extension. Best of all, the next time the company wants to get an update from that tool, all of their changes are already a part of it.'"

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