Kairos: Being in the Room

You don’t always know when you’re in the liminal space which, years later, you’ll look back and say, “I was there.” Sometimes there’s a momentous feeling to a point in time, and other times, you don’t the significance of a moment until much later. Beginnings are like that: their nature can be cloaked in uncertainty.

And yet.

When I studied ancient Greek (long story), we learned the word kairos (καιρός) which is quite different from the word chronos (χρόνος). Chronos is the personification of time in Greek mythology, and the word means precisely what expect it to from the word chronology. One minute follows the next, each one being qualitatively and quantitatively the same. Kairos, on the other hand, was the Greek god of Time, Opportunity, and Favourable Moments. With that background, Kairos refers to an opportune moment, an exact or critical time. While chronos refers to time, kairos refers to the right time.

This week I’ve been in Atlanta to participate in a CMS Experts meeting hosted by Boye & Co., and the first TYPO3 Summit North America held in the ballroom at the Georgia Acquarium. My work with FAIR brought me here to build on what we started with TYPO3 in March. As a late addition to the schedule, I joined Karim Marucchi on stage to talk about the FAIR Package Manager Project, and why it’s important for TYPO3 and for any enterprise considering risk factors relating to their software supply chains. The day ended with a lovely Thai dinner. Not everyone was able to make it there, but before we dispersed any further, TYPO3 GmbH CEO Daniel Fau said just a few brief words before requesting a group photo. It’s those words remind me of kairos. I believe — as do Daniel, Karim, and I’m sure most of the room — that this is TYPO3’s moment. The day had that feeling; the sense that it was an inaugural event that becomes a foundation for an unfolding future. It wasn’t an exceptionally large group, but the significance isn’t in how many were there, but in who was there.

We’re currently facing new kinds of uncertainty in the broader open source community, from sustainable funding models to stable governance to ensuring open remains open while dealing with the monumental impact of AI on the industry with a flood of CVE reports and escalating supply chain attacks. To cap off the two event days, yesterday I spent a casual afternoon and evening with most of the TYPO3 group and some folk from Karim’s Crowd Favorite team. We shared many laughs, interspersed with insights and ideas about interpreting the present time and anticipating the future. This is the moment, the kairos, when TYPO3 is asserting itself with an increased presence in North America. It’s already very popular in Europe, where within certain vertical sectors or industries, it commands market shares in the 40-50% range. Typically, these are enterprise users in sectors like transportation, higher education, and government. With a long-time focus on making enterprise technology accessible to the SME market, this makes me take notice. There’s (much) more to say in the coming days, but TYPO3 offers unrivaled stability on its course through the list of uncertainties that open source is currently attempting to navigate.

Luisa Faßbender posted a short recap, calling it “an event that just felt different.” This week, it feels like I’ve just spent three days “in the room,” as they say, experiencing an extended kairos moment. You’ll want to keep an eye on TYPO3.