Novell, whose Open Source star fell a bit when it announced its co-operation pact with Microsoft,  is now one of the the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel.

A year ago it was Red Hat that was the leader in Linux kernel development, but since then the company has plummeted, according to a report just released by the Linux Foundation.

Red Hat continues to contribute and sponsors 11.2 percent of the Linux kernel's development, but this figure is down from 14.4 percent in 2007, while Novell has jumped from an 3.6 percent in 2007 to 8.9 percent in 2008.

There has been a pay off for Novell in supporting and contributing to kernel development.  During the last year its share of the Linux market has increased by 200 percent.