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BSDs (FreeBSD in this case) are used in production today, a notable example is Netflix: https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf https://people.

by jjav 3y ago

BSDs (FreeBSD in this case) are used in production today, a notable example is Netflix: https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf

accrual 3y ago
The Nintendo Switch and Sony PS3/PS4/PS5 operating systems are also derived from FreeBSD.
- ninjin 3y ago
  I think it is sadly not true for the Nintendo Switch [1], so it seems that it is still mainly Apple’s macOS and Sony’s PlayStation 3 and 4 [2,3] (could not find any hard facts on the PlayStation 5, but it is still early days). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_software#Open_source_components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_softwar... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbis_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbis_OS
  - accrual 3y ago
    Ah, thanks for helping remove my apparently common misconception. Thanks!
  - tpush 3y ago
    macOS and its derivatives are not a BSD.
    - ninjin 3y ago
      Reality is more complex than that: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without... https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/BSD/BSD.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da... You have also had patches go from Apple straight into the FreeBSD tree with improvements they made on their side. So, yes, it certainly is not as easy a case as one would make for Sony’s forks, but the answer is certainly not a resounding “no”.
rrdharan 3y ago
Some would say the only notable example is Netflix and it’s likely because of the aforementioned warm fuzzies which align with the ages of people who made the decision to go with it. WhatsApp also used a BSD IIRC but I imagine they’ve transitioned to Meta’s standard stack by this point.
- toast0 3y ago
  > WhatsApp also used a BSD IIRC but I imagine they’ve transitioned to Meta’s standard stack by this point. Yes, that happened. I was there. FreeBSD is great and we would have continued to use it, but as an aquisition, you can only push back on so much of the incumbent tech stack. Much of the team had experience at Yahoo and saw how hard it is for acquisitions to run in the same infrastructure if they're running a different OS, so we spent zero time asking to run FreeBSD at Facebook. The hardware at Facebook was quite a bit different, so there was never an apples to apples comparison to say whether one OS (as tuned) was better than the other at the use case. They clearly both work, and I've got my opinions and other people have theirs, and that's fine.

by jjav 3y ago

BSDs (FreeBSD in this case) are used in production today, a notable example is Netflix: https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/euro2021.pdf

accrual 3y ago

The Nintendo Switch and Sony PS3/PS4/PS5 operating systems are also derived from FreeBSD.

ninjin 3y ago
I think it is sadly not true for the Nintendo Switch [1], so it seems that it is still mainly Apple’s macOS and Sony’s PlayStation 3 and 4 [2,3] (could not find any hard facts on the PlayStation 5, but it is still early days). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_software#Open_source_components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Switch_system_softwar... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbis_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbis_OS
- accrual 3y ago
  Ah, thanks for helping remove my apparently common misconception. Thanks!
- tpush 3y ago
  macOS and its derivatives are not a BSD.
  - ninjin 3y ago
    Reality is more complex than that: https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without_the_Good_Bits https://wiki.freebsd.org/Myths#FreeBSD_is_Just_macOS_Without... https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/BSD/BSD.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da... You have also had patches go from Apple straight into the FreeBSD tree with improvements they made on their side. So, yes, it certainly is not as easy a case as one would make for Sony’s forks, but the answer is certainly not a resounding “no”.

rrdharan 3y ago

Some would say the only notable example is Netflix and it’s likely because of the aforementioned warm fuzzies which align with the ages of people who made the decision to go with it. WhatsApp also used a BSD IIRC but I imagine they’ve transitioned to Meta’s standard stack by this point.

toast0 3y ago
> WhatsApp also used a BSD IIRC but I imagine they’ve transitioned to Meta’s standard stack by this point. Yes, that happened. I was there. FreeBSD is great and we would have continued to use it, but as an aquisition, you can only push back on so much of the incumbent tech stack. Much of the team had experience at Yahoo and saw how hard it is for acquisitions to run in the same infrastructure if they're running a different OS, so we spent zero time asking to run FreeBSD at Facebook. The hardware at Facebook was quite a bit different, so there was never an apples to apples comparison to say whether one OS (as tuned) was better than the other at the use case. They clearly both work, and I've got my opinions and other people have theirs, and that's fine.