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?

Matthew Szulik, Red Hat's former CEO and current chairman, has been in semi-retirement for the past two years, but you'd never know it from listening to his interview with the BBC's Peter Day. Szulik, ever the revolutionary, talks up open source's opportunity to disrupt conventional software and promote social reform.

Red Hat's Matthew Garrett has actively been working on improving power management with graphics processors via the various open-source X.Org drivers. There is quite a lot of work involved, but at the FOSDEM X.Org meeting he shared an update on his progress. In particular, Matthew is trying to conserve power with the GPU, memory, outputs, and displays.

Once he started talking, (Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik) was a fairly general presentation on the value of open source software, standards, interoperability, etc

Matthew Szulik, chairman of Red Hat, Inc., was today named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) 2008 overall national winner. He was also named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year(R) 2008 national winner in the Technology category.

"In a fascinating article at Reuters Red Hat’s Matthew Szulik admitted that a year ago he and Microsoft were discussing some sort of patent deal."

Matthew Szulik runs a successful business that gives its products away for free. What is more, Mr Szulik was recently named the United States Entrepreneur of the Year.

Matthew Szulik, chairman of Red Hat’s board of directors, is stepping down in August after his term expires, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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.)