The move had been anticipated since Red Hat in mid-April announced plans to buy open-source application server provider JBoss Inc. for about US$420 million.

The company will support RHAS users over the life of their contracts, which span one year, it said.

Aaron Darcy, director of global strategic services, declined to disclose the number of RHAS users, but he said that they won't be rushed to migrate to JBoss. RHAS is based on the Jonas J2EE application server from the open-source ObjectWeb Consortium.

Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat also announced at the conference plans to create a community called 108 for developers seeking collaboration from open-source developers or guidance from Red Hat engineers. The company also said it will provide two internally developed testing tools to the open-source community and that it is revising the shipment schedule for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat said the developer Web site, www.108.redhat.com, will be similar to rival Microsoft Corp.'s MSDN Web site for Windows developers. Although the site will host open-source code and projects, it doesn't directly compete with the Open Source Technology Group's SourceForge Web site, said Todd Barr, director of enterprise marketing. A Useful Tool