by Laura Conaway

This wouldn't be big news in ordinary times, but let's go ahead and count it in now. Thanks to Twitter listener @samfw for forwarding this:

Red Hat Advances After Profit Forecast Tops Estimates

Red Hat, which sells Linux software, has announced it will make a profit that amounts to 19 or 20 cents a share. That's a couple of cents more than analysts expected. Why the happy returns? Linux is open source, meaning it uses code that people create and then turn loose for others to use. That makes it relatively cheap.

"A down economic time is relatively good for our business," CEO James Whitehurst told Bloomberg.

Bonus, from @aimeesblog: Really, really angry people in Iceland