Matthew isn't the sort of person to seek the limelight for himself, so it was actually hard to convince him to answer questions. As became evident in his answers, Matthew firmly believes in the open source model and the culture of personal excellence that makes it fruitful.

I wasn't very nice to Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat's new CEO, when I heard the news that he was replacing Matthew Szulik. My reasoning? Matthew Szulik had done so much for Red Hat and besides, what could a Delta Air Lines COO have to teach about open source?

Yesterday afternoon, Red Hat, Inc. announced that James Whitehurst would be taking over for Matthew Szulik as chief executive. This is important open source news because Red Hat is by far the largest company practicing open source as its primary business. (Disclaimer: I am a Red Hat executive.)

Bob Sutor discusses the effect of open source and open standards on innovation and markets. Specific topics include the effects of open source alternatives on software markets, open standards and interoperability, the new social aspect of software and the open source community.

This week’s Open Source Business Conference was a strange meeting of Enterprise IT users, venture capitalists, and free software entrepreneurs. The opening keynote was delivered by Red Hat’s freshly minted CEO Jim Whitehurst who gave a very modest speech noting that while Red Hat has been a leading open source company they have not necessarily been an open source leader.

Asian governments are pivotal to Red Hat's goal of earning 60 percent of its revenue from outside the United States by the end of 2009, said Matthew Szulik, the company's chairman, CEO and president, in a conference call on Thursday.

Microsoft is implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products: (1) ensuring open connections; (2) promoting data portability; (3) enhancing support for industry standards; and (4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities.

With LinuxWorld showcasing the popularity of the open source operating system, and with open source in general finding its legs in the enterprise, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, made a slate of predictions for Linux and open source during his keynote address on Wednesday at the Black Hat conference.

It's not every day that a Microsoft executive as highly placed as senior vice president, corporate secretary and general counsel Brad Smith shows up at an open source conference, but he made an appearance at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco this week. I enjoyed the title of InfoWorld's summary of his visit: Microsot's Brad Smith Tries to Make Nice with Open Source Community.