Netflix currently employs about 8 FreeBSD committers (possibly more, I'm counting on my fingers before coffee, so I might be forgetting people). Most of us contribute our changes back to the project. Some of these are major things, like async sendfile. Our goal is to upstream everything we can.

We also do other things, like sponsor conferences, and work behind the scenes, advocating for FreeBSD support from a wide variety of enterprise hardware vendors.

But why FreeBSD over Linux? Honestly it all seems like a waste of time. Linux is already the dominant free OS. Maybe it would be better to put resources into improving Linux (like Microsoft and Google do) instead? You can advocate for it all you want but the idea that FreeBSD is going to ever become as relevant as something like Linux is extremely unrealistic.

Not to mention Linux has a much better license for end-users in that it makes some effort to guarantee the code stays free, and that corporations can't close and modify the code and redistribute it for profit.

I feel like "advocating for FreeBSD" really does more harm to the open source ecosystem than good.

>You can advocate for it all you want but the idea that FreeBSD is going to ever become as relevant as something like Linux is extremely unrealistic.

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

BSD literally invented the networking stack that was copied (poorly) by Linux, and most other Unix variants including Darwin (macOS). It is strictly superior for networked applications. Read here for more info (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167126)

Would also add that, overall, BSDs are much more lean and well designed than Linux. There are thousands of Linux developers submitting patches all the time, in every direction. That's part of what makes Linux great, but it also makes it a huge mess of code duplication and design bloat. Dbus is a mess, /proc is a mess, netlink is a mess, systemd is a mess, hell eBPF is an insane mess. Linux has a huge legacy of bad APIs, tools and design choices, that were integrated in a rush. That makes Linux trendy, but definitely not what you want when you're just interested in a stable, understandable kernel to run your core infrastructure ou embedded equipments. Not to mention even tooling and network daemons on BSDS are much easier to work with and configure IMHO.

I've been doing kernel development for Linux since a while now, and I'm always amazed at how much time it takes me to understand a new subsystem I didn't use before, because everything is SO damn over engineered it's a farm fest for geek. Whereas when I hack OpenBSD or FreeBSD on my free time I feel like I can be productive making changes in an unknown subsystem in just a few days of reading code and playing with it.

They way I've seen it described is that BSD is designed, Linux is grown.

Every part of BSD is from BSD. The kernel, network stack, init system, userland, sshd, etc are all made and released together. Ideas are driven by teams and committees and then implemented.

Every part of a functioning Linux system is from a different vendor. "Linux" makes the kernel and network stack, the init system comes from the FreeDesktop project, the userland comes from GNU, sshd comes from BSD. Things are driven in a variety of different ways, by different people, with different goals and thoughts on how Linux should look. Eventually it all gets glued together and we see what we've got.

> But why FreeBSD over Linux? Honestly it all seems like a waste of time. Linux is already the dominant free OS.

Linux isn't an OS, it's a kernel. There are hundreds of distributions that package Linux and make an OS out of it. You don't think that all that duplication of effort is an even larger waste of time?

Who cares if FreeBSD isn't as relevant. Monocultures suck. There's lots to like and lots to dislike in Linux, and I'm happy that we have other working systems from which to draw lessons and inspiration.

You gotta be joking here right?! Because something is more popular doesn't mean it has quality over everything else. And with licensing we could argue about your statement. I will end it here with BSD's networking stack, kqueue, jails, dtrace and for god's sake try something different, you may be surprised (illumos based operating systems for example)

>Not to mention Linux has a much better license for end-users in that it makes some effort to guarantee the code stays free, and that corporations can't close and modify the code and redistribute it for profit.

I disagree very strongly with this statement. The best license for the end user is the one that enables the developer to thrive financially. If that license is open source it's a bonus for the end user. I also believe that the software is only truly free if you're contributing because you care, not because of a viral contractual clause.

Microsoft has done quite a bit of FreeBSD development in the past 3 years, and is starting to do general subsystem work (VNET, jails)

Both Netflix and Whatsapp has donated. I could not find any source that Nintendo or Sony donated, though.

Was it a token gift redolent in condescension or was it actually something approximating some meaningful fraction of the opportunity cost of having selected something else other than the BSD project as a supplier?

Cynicism would say the former but I'd be delighted if I were wrong.

Whatsapp donated 1 million dollars two years ago and 500000 dollars last year iirc. For Netflix I don't know but they employ a lot of FreeBSD devs and upstream all their work.

I think Jan Koum personally donated 1 million:

http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.de/2014/11/freebsd-foundat...

https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-...

Of course, that is completely awesome!

I can't be responsible for their donations, just as you can't so let's not try asking each other about that. Both of us, however, can be responsible for our own donations. I have already donated, what's your excuse? ;)

They have some obligation to answer to their customers (yes I know for private corporations the shareholder is ultimately the authority but shareholders exist because there are customers not the other way around) so we, as their customers should call them out on it. Even though other people have made the point we can't state enough times that these corporations have more of a duty to donate seeing as they extract far more value.

Given the license gives them complete freedom of what the do with FreeBSD, I wouldn't agree they have any duty. I would agree it would be nice, for sure it would be welcome, but nice & welcome doesn't constitute any duties. Just imagine under how huge pressure and scrutiny ALL linux distros, projects and companies should be for using OpenSSH _everywhere_ and not donating a penny to OpenSSH/OpenBSD projects. But the license allows it and that's the point and spirit of Open Source in eyes of BSD.

A moral duty. And I agree OpenSSH/OpenBSD/*BSD should receive a lot more support from the Linux community, as should any project that is used for the benefit of others. No arguments there.