Robert Cathey

2025 State of Open Source in Financial Services Survey Welcome to the 2025 State of Open Source in Financial Services Survey!

If you work with open source in finops, whether in development, governance, or tooling, please complete the survey. The results are important for all of us.

www.research.net/r/RPPW7S3

"These aren’t hobbyist projects. They are critical infrastructure."

openinfra.org/blog/openinf...

The 30-Year Unicorn Backlog If the current pace of exits persists, it would take 30 years for every U.S. company on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board to go public or be acquired. While it may sound disheartening, it’s actually an imp...

"For now, we’re waiting to see if more unicorns make it to exit. With the tech IPO market mostly frozen at the moment, public markets likely won’t be providing returns in the near term."

news.crunchbase.com/ma/exits-uni...

Why is poor branding spreading?

5G was supposed to be better than LTE, but ~6 years in, coverage remains spotty, bandwidth remains limited, and connection quality remains intermittent. Why?

It’s pretty astoundingly awful open source community behavior

Protecting NATS and the integrity of open source: CNCF’s commitment to the community When a company contributes a project to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), it’s not just sharing code—it’s making a commitment to the open source community. It’s a pledge to uphold open…

"Protecting NATS and the integrity of open source: CNCF’s commitment to the community" www.cncf.io/blog/2025/04... github.com/cncf/toc/iss...

When I hear someone saying they're a vibe programmer.

Protecting NATS and the integrity of open source: CNCF’s commitment to the community When a company contributes a project to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), it’s not just sharing code—it’s making a commitment to the open source community. It’s a pledge to uphold open…

There's bad open source behavior, and then there's this:

www.cncf.io/blog/2025/04...

OpenAI makes AWS look like branding experts.

Thinking maybe this is what vibe government looks like.

Serena study shows Open Source beats proprietary in funding speed, valuation, and exit success The Serena VC Commercial Open Source Report, based on 25 years of venture data and 800+ VC-backed Open Source startups, reveals key financial insights driving the model.

"Serena study shows Open Source beats proprietary in funding speed, valuation, and exit success" tech.eu/2025/04/10/s...

Mark Collier taking AI, open infrastructure, and joining forces with the @linuxfoundation.org on @techstronggroup.bsky.social at #kubecon.

@cra.dev thanks the #kubernetes and cloud native community of 1500 maintainers at #kubecon.

Massive crowd at #KubeCon keynotes

We’re in England. It’s an usie

CNCF-hosted Co-located Events Europe 2025: Panel: Ask the Devs! - Sharone Zitzman,... View more about this event at CNCF-hosted Co-located Events Europe 2025

@shar1z.com kicking off Ask the Devs. Join us at OpenTofu Day!

colocatedeventseu2025.sched.com/event/1uBAg/...

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado Indiana University quietly removes profile of tenured professor and refuses to say why.

What’s this all about? arstechnica.com/security/202...

I know what the extended Berkeley packet filter is and why it matters.

This must be some kind of mark that will get PR folk into heaven.

Right?

Right.

Let’s go! #kubecon

Worst product face plant since Newton

Just arrived in London a few hours ago for #kubecon and I've already learned that imperialism had nothing to do with being a world-class imp.

Who knew?

#jetlag

Google quantum exec says tech is '5 years out from a real breakout' Julian Kelly, Google Quantum AI's director of hardware, told CNBC quantum computers may only be about five years from a breakthrough.

Seems quantum computing has been five years away from a big breakthrough for the past 30 years.

www.cnbc.com/2025/03/25/g...

Also, why do some security analysts recommend using a VPN, then block VPN packets when you go to their website?

Rule #16 of analyst relations:

The data you want is not included in your subscription tier.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

In 25 years of covering national security, I’ve never seen a story like this: Senior Trump officials discussed planning for the U.S. attack on Yemen in a Signal group--and inadvertently added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

I'm looking for my next thing, and I need to move fast. I have several years of experience in developer relations from startups to the enterprise, and I'm particularly skilled at distilling complex topics into something easily understood by newbies and non-technical folks alike, on stage or off. 1/3

My forthcoming book on the history of open source will be titled, "Hope, euphoria, recrimination and bitterness"

Grateful that our only impacts from the storm were torrential rain, inconvenience, and multiple flight rebookings.