There was a lot of FUD in BSD space back in 90s. People were worried they might get sued out of existence. And the original version of FreeBSD was lacking some

There was a lot of FUD in BSD space back in 90s. People were worried they might get sued out of existence. And the original version of FreeBSD was lacking some critical things because they had to get rid of a lot of proprietary code to avoid the wrath of AT&T and its successors. Additionally, FSF was in need of a Kernel and they chose Linux. There was a lot of evangelism involved. While BSD was recovering for the its troubled past, Richard Stallman and Co. were pushing Linux to the rest of the world. Even Apple considered using Linux as a base for what would become Mac OS X — it was called MkLinux. By the time BSDs managed to get their act together, it was already too late — Linux had gained critical mass.