whurley is the Chief Architect of Open Source Strategy at BMC Software, Inc. where he is responsible for creating BMC's open source agenda and overseeing the company's participation in various free, and open source software communities. Prior to BMC he was the CTO at Qlusters, where he founded the openQRM project. He is the chairman of the Open Management Consortium, a non-profit organization advancing the adoption, development, and integration of open source systems management.

His other active projects include the openSIMS, BarCampAustin, and his personal website whurley.com.