A year of funded FreeBSD development

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Funding and Corporate Support

  • Several comments dissect how FreeBSD development is funded, noting that Foundation donations are only a minority of total corporate-funded work.
  • Some criticize big users (e.g., large cloud and tech companies) for apparently minimal visible sponsorship via the FreeBSD Foundation, while others point out this is a partial picture: companies also fund individuals or in-house work that never passes through the Foundation.
  • Microsoft is cited as having recurring donations and in-house developers working on Hyper‑V and Azure FreeBSD support; reasons range from customer demand to internal FOSS funding programs.
  • Amazon is viewed by some as doing the least for FOSS among large tech firms, though it clearly funds some FreeBSD work directly.
  • One commenter worries that a part‑time release engineer funded for a limited period is not a sustainable model for an OS of this size.

FreeBSD on AWS and the “Magic” Disk Size Cliff

  • A widely discussed anecdote: changing the EC2 root disk size from 5→6 GB made FreeBSD boot 3× slower, while 8 GB restored performance.
  • Speculative explanations about EBS/S3 caching heuristics are floated, but the real cause remains opaque; even AWS veterans in the thread can’t definitively tie it to historic S3 object size limits.
  • The debugging process involved bisecting over weekly snapshots and building many AMIs; with a good starting window, it took only a few hours.
  • Some participants share broader curiosity about AWS’s internal tooling and layering of services on top of other AWS services.

FreeBSD’s Niche vs Linux and Other BSDs

  • Multiple users describe FreeBSD as:
    • Having a larger userbase and software catalog than OpenBSD/NetBSD.
    • Strong in throughput/networking, ZFS, jails, and as a cohesive “single OS” rather than a collection of projects.
    • A refuge from systemd and perceived Linux “churn,” with more stability in interfaces and configuration over time.
  • ZFS support is highlighted as cleaner than on Linux due to licensing, with real‑world wins (e.g., instant rollbacks after production mistakes).
  • FreeBSD’s integrated base system (kernel, libc, userland, tools like jails, DTrace, ZFS, bhyve, pf) is contrasted with Linux’s “zoo” of distros and independently developed components.
  • Some note FreeBSD’s smaller hardware support matrix (especially Wi‑Fi and certain 10 GbE NICs) and lag on big.LITTLE scheduling, though laptop/modern hardware work is underway and funded.

Corporate Influence and “Soft Power”

  • A long subthread debates whether Apple or other corporations exert “soft power” over FreeBSD.
  • Several experienced users and developers insist Apple has essentially no influence today: macOS has its own XNU kernel, rarely rebases from FreeBSD, and Apple’s historic LLVM work is now only part of a much broader ecosystem.
  • Netflix, NetApp, Juniper and others are cited as more impactful FreeBSD users; Netflix in particular both uses FreeBSD at scale (CDN) and contributes extensive performance/stability work.
  • Some commenters prefer FreeBSD specifically because, compared to Linux, it feels less steered by large corporate agendas, though others note the tradeoff: fewer resources and slower hardware support.

Tooling, Laptops, and Practical Experiences

  • Zig now ships FreeBSD master builds and supports it as a first-class cross‑compilation target, which commenters see as helpful for CI and broader app support.
  • The FreeBSD Foundation’s laptop initiative (e.g., S0ix sleep, hybrid CPU awareness) and a ~$750k investment are mentioned as signs of active desktop/laptop work.
  • Practitioners report success running dense multi‑service setups in jails on a single FreeBSD server, with very cost‑efficient throughput; hybrid FreeBSD/Linux cloud migrations raised costs but brought cloud benefits.
  • Others recount hardware pain points (NIC drivers, Wi‑Fi, ARM/big.LITTLE support) and the need to choose hardware carefully—often preferring Intel NICs for reliability.
  • Overall, many see FreeBSD as a well‑engineered, stable, and coherent system that rewards users who value control and long-term consistency over latest‑and‑greatest features.