5 ms·

Surely Netflix should be donating. Surely Sony should be donating. Surely Nintendo, Facebrick(Whatsapp). While you're here what did they donate?

by harry8 9y ago

iiv 9y ago
Both Netflix and Whatsapp has donated. I could not find any source that Nintendo or Sony donated, though.
- harry8 9y ago
  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.
  - bidouilliste 9y ago
    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.
    - danieldk 9y ago
      I think Jan Koum personally donated 1 million: http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.de/2014/11/freebsd-foundation-announces-generous.html http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.de/2014/11/freebsd-foundat... https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-new-uranium-donor/ https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-... Of course, that is completely awesome!
tachion 9y ago
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? ;)
- hd4 9y ago
  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.
  - tachion 9y ago
    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.
    - hd4 9y ago
      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.
drewg123 9y ago
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.
- 43224gg252 9y ago
  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.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    >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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167126)
    - Galanwe 9y ago
      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.

Surely Netflix should be donating. Surely Sony should be donating. Surely Nintendo, Facebrick(Whatsapp). While you're here what did they donate?

by harry8 9y ago

Surely Netflix should be donating. Surely Sony should be donating. Surely Nintendo, Facebrick(Whatsapp). While you're here what did they donate?

iiv 9y ago

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

harry8 9y ago
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.
- bidouilliste 9y ago
  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.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    I think Jan Koum personally donated 1 million: http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.de/2014/11/freebsd-foundation-announces-generous.html http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.de/2014/11/freebsd-foundat... https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-new-uranium-donor/ https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/blog/foundation-announces-... Of course, that is completely awesome!

tachion 9y ago

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? ;)

hd4 9y ago
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.
- tachion 9y ago
  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.
  - hd4 9y ago
    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.

drewg123 9y ago

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.

43224gg252 9y ago
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.
- aphextron 9y ago
  >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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8167126)
  - Galanwe 9y ago
    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.