BOULDER, Colo., May 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The FreeBSD Foundation, dedicated to advancing the open source FreeBSD operating system and supporting the community, announced record momentum among significant partner investments and donation growth.
"The industry's increasing partnership with the FreeBSD Foundation reflects a collective enthusiasm and recognition of FreeBSD's role as a cornerstone for innovation and commercial solutions,” said Greg Wallace, Senior Director of Partnerships of FreeBSD Foundation. “The considerable rise in corporate donations underscores how industry leaders are increasingly turning to FreeBSD for the most robust, secure, and adaptable operating system to drive the next wave of technological advancements.”
Highlights:
- Accelerated Growth: In 2023, the FreeBSD Foundation added three first-time corporate partners (AMD, Nozomi Networks, and RG Nets), contributing to year-over-year growth in new partners and donations. These three join six companies that have donated every year for the past five: Beckhoff, Juniper Networks, Netflix, Stormshield, and Tarsnap. NetApp also donated and is the Foundation’s single largest cumulative corporate donor from 2019 to 2023.
- SSDF Attestation: The FreeBSD Foundation launched a new service to aid commercial users of FreeBSD with the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF). This service helps commercial FreeBSD users comply with US Government secure software development reporting requirements. It is available to FreeBSD partners that donate at the Silver level and up. To learn more, click here.
- CheriBSD: The FreeBSD Foundation announced the first annual Digital Security by Design (DSbD) Ecosystem Beacon Awards to celebrate innovators working with and enhancing CheriBSD, one of the notable current breakthroughs made possible by FreeBSD.
According to a recent FreeBSD survey of 1446 users, commercial organizations are increasingly using FreeBSD as a foundation for a variety of various use cases due to its ease of use and robust performance. Ninety-three percent of respondents reported a positive experience with FreeBSD, 90% say FreeBSD is a good way to learn about OS internals, and 93% report that FreeBSD is a good way to learn about system administration. Several recent examples of FreeBSD use cases include:
- Metify replaced a Linux and KVM virtual machine solution with FreeBSD for its metal-as-a-service software appliance. The results included boosted performance, higher system uptime, and streamlined architecture. In its January 2024 LinkedIn update, Metify announced it had achieved one year of uninterrupted uptime.
- NetApp selected FreeBSD as the basis for NetApp ONTAP, its data management system, across all its products. This decision was made due to FreeBSD's permissive licensing, performance orientation, and flexible implementation options. By contributing nearly 300 changes and software like the bhyve hypervisor, NetApp plans to leverage FreeBSD's capabilities for its innovative data infrastructure solutions, ensuring adaptability and efficiency in a disruptive market.
- Beckhoff chose FreeBSD over Linux for their open automation systems due to legal concerns with the GPL and a need for a non-GPL, stable, high-performance OS that can support a wide range of hardware. It merged its proprietary TwinCAT runtime with FreeBSD to create TwinCAT/BSD, which offers broad multicore support and compatibility from Arm to Xeon. This decision enabled Beckhoff to offer advanced automation products without the constraints of Linux's licensing.
- Juniper Networks picked FreeBSD as the basis for its Junos OS operating system due to the stable release system, feature roadmap, and favorable licensing that facilitates the development of proprietary high-performance networking technologies. FreeBSD supports Juniper's objective of creating a unified, modular operating system with synchronized software releases for all its products, from small offices to large-scale networks. Collaboration within the FreeBSD community, including universities, individuals, and corporations, has further enhanced Juniper's ability to meet the diverse demands of its AI-driven networking, cloud, and security solutions.
Additional resources:
- Join: Learn about ways to join the FreeBSD Foundation.
- Learn: Read about the most recent community and Foundation updates.
- Donate: Donate financial support to the FreeBSD Foundation.
About The FreeBSD Foundation
The FreeBSD Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the FreeBSD Project and community. Accepting donations from individuals and businesses, the Foundation uses funds to develop features, employ software engineers, improve build and test infrastructure, advocate for FreeBSD through in person and online events, and provide training and educational material. Representing the FreeBSD Project in legal affairs, the Foundation stands as the recognized entity for contracts, licenses, and other legal arrangements and is entirely donation supported. Learn more at freebsdfoundation.org
