Webcast Recap: General Hugh Shelton

General Hugh Shelton, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Red Hat, was our guest for today's Open Your World Forum webcast.

General Shelton's recently published autobiography, Without Hesitation, chronicles his distinguished and nearly four-decade military career, spanning a history from the Vietnam War to Operation:Uphold Democracy in Haiti to 9/11 and his time as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During the webcast, he reflected on his career and the links that his own experiences and the military in general have to the principles that the open source way comprises.

General Shelton first encountered open source software while serving on the USS Mount Whitney. After some problems with Microsoft's unchangeable, proprietary code not meeting his team's requirements, they found the right solution with open source software, which let them change the code as they needed. Many years later, in 2003, General Shelton was elected to serve as on the Red Hat board of directors and in 2010 was selected to serve as chairman of that board.