The Linux Foundation announced today that Parallels, sponsors of the OpenVZ project and creators of several commercial virtualization products will lend full support to the foundation, including participating in sponsored events and workgroups.

Parallels has actively contributed to the development of the Linux kernel for some time now and was even named one of the 10 most active corporate contributors by the foundation itself in August 2009. “Linux is a key component of our business strategy, which is why we’ve been an active contributor to the Linux kernel and today are affirming Parallels’ continued commitment to the platform with our Linux Foundation membership,” said Jack Zubarev, president of Marketing and Alliances at Parallels.

The addition of Parallels to The Linux Foundation reaffirms the company's commitment to the operating system and open source community. In a separate statement Zubarev made it clear that Parallels will continue to promote products for Linux in enterprise environments.

Not wasting any time, Parallels will sponsor a Linux.com feature on virtualization this month. Project Manager Krill Kolyshkin will present “Containers and Namespaces in the Linux Kernel” at the Linux Foundation Collaboration summit.