BOULDER, Colo., June 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This week, the FreeBSD Foundation celebrates the 30th anniversary of the open source FreeBSD operating system, marking thirty years of innovation and growth since David Greenman first suggested FreeBSD as the name for the Unix-like operating system now used by billions around the world.
“We’re thrilled to honor the contributions of the open source community as FreeBSD has thrived across global organizations, from content streaming on Netflix to games on PlayStation,” said Deb Goodkin, executive director, FreeBSD Foundation. “Our community has navigated the incredible technical challenges and changes over the past thirty years. We are as committed as ever to providing the best platform for experimentation and development bolstered by a reliable foundation for commercialization and wide adoption.”
“The project’s approach to leadership, enablement of remote development, valuable ports, discerning approach to hardware, open source Berkeley license, and unique communication, documentation, support, and culture have all contributed to its success and response to massive technical changes over the past three decades. We invite all to honor the FreeBSD Project’s long history and foundational role as driving technology and innovation forward.”
FreeBSD was initially released in 1993, derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley. Developers choose FreeBSD because of its advanced networking, performance, and security and compatibility features.
Key advantages of FreeBSD as it innovates and continues to gain traction:
- Business-friendly license: The Berkeley license doesn’t require organizations to share source code changes with others, offering open source freedom for companies that must place code representing proprietary intellectual property into their products.
- Security is second to none: FreeBSD strives to stay secure and employs secure by design principles.
- Customizable: FreeBSD is easily customizable, allowing you to install just what you need, without additional bloat. With over 30,000 applications available, you can easily set up the operating system to fit your needs or make it simple by using it “out of the box.”
- A shared approach to leadership: The FreeBSD Core Team, initially comprising the project’s founders, is now composed of nine elected positions to include committers’ voice in leadership and to keep the project robust and capable of evolution.
- A discerning approach to hardware: FreeBSD has always selected recommended hardware and offered diligent, targeted support, which has allowed it to be on the forefront of reliability and performance metrics.
- Modern remote development: From its early days, FreeBSD has leveraged source code control, bug reporting, and other tools that enable remote development. By enabling the rapid incorporation of code—including valuable capabilities drawn from NetBSD and OpenBSD—FreeBSD gives freedom to accelerate development beyond standard limitations.
- A commitment to thoughtful and civil community and culture: FreeBSD has managed to encourage civil and thoughtful communications that serve developers from diverse cultures without limiting freedom of expression. Its welcoming and inclusive culture extends the same voting rights (and equal voice) to all committers.
- Extraordinary documentation and support: FreeBSD maintains valuable software documentation in part through recruiting contributors who focus on it while also asking developers to regularly ensure that documentation is accurate and complete. FreeBSD’s documentation committer group has the same privileges as code committers, and the project supports a multi-language documentation framework to make FreeBSD knowledge available to a global developer base.
To learn more about the 30th anniversary of FreeBSD, read the FreeBSD Foundation’s blog.
About The FreeBSD Foundation:
The FreeBSD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the FreeBSD Project and community. The Foundation gratefully accepts donations from individuals and businesses, using them to fund and manage projects, employ a staff of software engineers, organize and run FreeBSD events, advocate for FreeBSD, and provide training and educational material. In addition, the Foundation represents the FreeBSD Project in executing contracts, license agreements, and other legal arrangements that require a recognized legal entity. The FreeBSD Foundation is entirely supported by donations.
