Red Hat  shed a little more light this week on how it intends to develop the directory and certificate management software it bought from America Online's Netscape division. But the company remains undecided as to whether it will commercialize some other assets it acquired in the deal, including messaging and collaboration software analysts say could form the basis of an open-source alternative to Microsoft Exchange Server.

Red Hat purchased the Netscape assets , including the Netscape Directory Server and Netscape Certificate Management System, at the end of 2004. Since then, it has rebranded these products the Red Hat Directory Server and the Red Hat Certificate System. It is also in the process of releasing the source code to its directory server to the open source community.

In an interview conducted during the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco this week, Red Hat Director of Identity and Security Solutions Mike Ferris said that his company now plans to release the Certificate System under an open-source license, although no timetable has yet been set for this. "We're in the process of working with the community to make sure we can open source it," he said.

Although the directory and certificate products were the focus of the Netscape acquisition, Red Hat also picked up a number of other server products that could conceivably form the basis of a competitor to Microsoft's Exchange messaging server, analysts say. This software includes the Netscape Messaging Server, as well as Web, calendar and collaboration servers.

Though these products may have languished since they were acquired by AOL in 1998, they could form the basis of an Exchange alternative, something that really does not exist in the open source community, according to Anne Thomas Manes, research director with Burton Group.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.