14 ms·

Let's Help NetBSD Cross the Finish Line Before 2025 Ends

406 points by jaypatelani 1y ago

fallen_comrade 1y ago
https://netbsd.org/donations/ https://netbsd.org/donations/
kosolam 1y ago
It’s so annoying that none of the corps using it aren’t putting a cent in and they ask individual developers to donate. Meh
- sgt 1y ago
  I'd hope at least some of the NetBSD developers are paid to work on the OS as part of their day jobs.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  That is the wonder of BSD like licenses for big corps. If Linux never happened, we would still be using big iron UNIXes, each taking whatever they felt like from BSD variants. Notice how all the new FOSS operating systems for IoT devices none of them use GPL, NutXX, FreeRTOS, Zephyr, Arduino libs, IDF,...
  - layer8 1y ago
    OTOH, if Linux never happened, much more work would be put into *BSD.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      Not really, as anyone that was already using UNIX at the time is aware of, and the whole UNIX V6 vs BSD integrations as baseline for Aix, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX,....
    - ghaff 1y ago
      Absent something like OpenSolaris really taking off, the popular opinion in my circles is that *BSD would have (which is at least related to the same thing). Unless you believe Windows would have "won" which is certainly the side-bet a lot of companies were making at the time.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - spauldo 1y ago
    No, we wouldn't. Linux climbed its way up to overtake proprietary UNIX despite being less capable, which it very much was at the time. Linux came around at the right time when the Internet was going public and regular people had access to hardware that could run a decent UNIX. People latched onto it because it was free and an interesting project. The free BSDs were just late enough to the party that they missed out on the momentum. All the proprietary UNIX vendors (other than SCO) relied on expensive proprietary hardware sales. Intel ate their lunch while they were too busy stabbing each other in the back to notice. Linux killed SCO because SCO was, quite frankly, overpriced crap. None of this had anything to do with the license, other that the fact you could use it for free. It was all about hardware availability, the rise of the Internet, the wave of new IT people who had experienced Linux at home, and the fact that Linux on Intel was good enough to replace those pricy proprietary machines. Now, you wanna talk Apple, there's where your code "theft" kicks in. But that's a whole different thing.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      I was there, hence why it it easy to get quotes like these, > 1998: Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux Without big money from UNIX vendors like those, cutting down their R&D costs, Linux would not have climbed anything. GPL was the reason why they collaborated instead of being able to assimilate the code as they were doing with BSD, like anything sockets related. Ironically IBM has recouped its investment, now as Red-Hat owners. That is where everything on GNU/Linux that is mainly done by Red-Hat like GNOME, Gtk, GCC, Java is being paid for.
      - spauldo 1y ago
        Yeah, I was there too. The three companies you list are horrible examples. IBM is kind of a UNIX vendor, sort of, but not like Sun or DEC. They sell solutions, and the solutions that use AIX don't overlap with what Linux was capable of in 1998. I'd argue that, given their complete disregard for Tru-64 and pretty much all things DEC, Compaq was never a UNIX vendor - they just inherited a bunch of legacy systems they needed to support. They certainly didn't push for new Tru-64 based systems. Oracle wasn't a UNIX vendor at all and wouldn't become one for quite some time. BSD sockets are also a bad example. They were the reference implementation, paid for by DARPA. The entire purpose of BSD sockets was to be copied into other operating systems. You'll notice that Linux copied them as well. IBM and Compaq invested in Linux because they wanted something that ran on their lower-end server hardware and could handle web traffic. Oracle invested in Linux because they wanted to be the backend to all these new websites that were cropping up. IBM, Oracle, and Compaq didn't give a rat's ass about the operating system code - they wanted the platform. If Linux had never happened and FreeBSD became the new hot thing all the online hackers were talking about, the result would have been exactly the same. They'd have poured money into the projects rather than trying to make their own thing because that's the financially sensible thing to do. The UNIX wars were over, and proprietary software lost. Meanwhile, the last major UNIX vendor - Sun Microsystems - was giving away its own source code under the CDDL. FreeBSD ended up adopting a lot of it. That's the complete opposite effect from what you're talking about. Sun got involved in the GNOME project and even deprecated their own CDE desktop in favor of it. Was it because it was GPL? No. It was because they saw that all the new desktop software was coming out of the Linux community, who didn't have access to CDE. Even if GNOME had been BSD licensed they would still have switched to it, because they were still trying to keep the workstation market alive at that point and CDE was quickly becoming irrelevant. As far as I can see, the only companies interested in taking operating system code were the network appliance vendors and Apple. It only worked for them because they didn't care about compatibility.
  - bentley 1y ago
    > That is the wonder of BSD like licenses for big corps. You mean any free software license, BSD or otherwise. Notice how NetBSD isn’t asking for code contributions, but for monetary contributions. The GPL doesn’t cover that either. Observe the current rugpulling fad to relicense free software (both permissive and copyleft) to nonfree protectionist licenses like BUSL and SSPL in order to monetize.
- unleaded 1y ago
  I wonder if there'll be some big cultural shift in open source as people get more annoyed at cases of big companies taking their code and giving nothing back/demanding them to work for free. Might already be happening just slowly
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    The people at the big companies who share the cause are not the ones who have anything important to decide there.
  - forgetfulness 1y ago
    AGPL and non-compete licenses like SSPL and FSL have been steadily adopted —Redis, ElasticSearch and Liquibase notably switched to them—, pretty much motivated by not wanting to be screwed over by Big Tech one way or another. More than fine if you ask me, giving away your work for megacorps and oligarchs to steamroll your business or otherwise society at large isn’t much of a public service in the end
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      Yeah I have been thinking more and more about source available. I am not sure about AGPL as I feel like, some companies might still use it. honestly, it depends but all the companies which use non compete license somehow diverts back to AGPL if they were open source before So if some company/product was open source and then used source available license, the backlash would be so much that they go to something like AGPl most of the time but that happens because people feel betrayed because some might have contributed thinking its foss forever so its a rug pull I think a good idea could be to have a source available license from the start so that everybody who ever contributes knows this as a fact. What are your thoughts? What should I or anyone else pick? As a "foss" advocate, I would prefer AGPL but I don't want to get screwed by Big Tech ever with all the loopholes that they can have (like AWS), Honestly I don't know which is why I am asking really.
      - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
- fidotron 1y ago
  Are there any major corporations using NetBSD today? I know in the past things like the network stack had been repurposed to other mainstream products.
  - jaypatelani 1y ago
    Well NASA currently using pkgsrc of NetBSD for their NAS https://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/support/kb/using-software-packages-in-pkgsrc_493.html https://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/support/kb/using-software-pack...
- alecco 1y ago
  From Big Tech to startups, most corporations waste billions in ridiculous and frivolous projects and yet insignificant money is sent back to the projects they owe their very existence. But don't you dare switch to a proprietary license or you will be dragged across social media as an evil selfish person. Even if it's only postponing source releases for a couple of years.
- spauldo 1y ago
  I doubt NetBSD gets much use by "big corps." It's used by hobbyists, researchers, and universities.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  Amazon and Netflix have both made major BSD contributions, although I don't know if any are specific to NetBSD.
jmclnx 1y ago
Such an underfunded project. Even with such low resources they can get a lot done.
- motorest 1y ago
  It surprised me that a project such as NetBSD only managed to raise ~$10k throughout the year. What's going on with the project?
  - atomic_princess 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - jmclnx 1y ago
    The last few years or so, its activity seemed to have increased quite a bit, or maybe they are getting more press then they have had in many years :) FWIW, this is the first time I have ever seen any mention of donations on any major tech WEB site.
bfkwlfkjf 1y ago
OT what's with the email addresses with percent signs in them?
- layer8 1y ago
  See http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_network/x-087-2-mail.address.html#:~:text=Then%20there%20is%20the%20 http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_network/x-087-2-mail.address.... (next to last paragraph)
  - berikv 1y ago
    “Then there is the % address operator: user %domainB@domainA is first sent to domainA, which expands the rightmost (in this case, the only) percent sign to an @ sign. The address is now user@domainB, and the mailer happily forwards your message to domainB, which delivers it to user. This type of address is sometimes referred to as “Ye Olde ARPAnet Kludge,” and its use is discouraged“
    - MontyCarloHall 1y ago
      >Ye Olde ARPAnet Kludge Seems fitting that NetBSD's internal mailing lists still use ossified address syntax from a time before DNS.
- andai 1y ago
  I would guess it's an anti-spam measure. Although if I'm reading sibling comment right, it is actually a valid email address? (Assuming you have a mail server running on localhost.)
  - layer8 1y ago
    It’s rather the opposite: Spammers used to exploit that mechanism back when it was more widely enabled.
    - andai 1y ago
wcchandler 1y ago
Do they offer a swag store like OpenBSD or FreeBSD? I realize they only get pennies from those sales but that’s typically my approach, buy a shirt for $30 and make an extra $20 donation.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Yes they do. Here is link https://www.freewear.org/NetBSD https://www.freewear.org/NetBSD
mythz 1y ago
It's really in the best interest of everyone using it to chip in and keep the project relevant. Unfortunately the amount of donations is going to be contingent on the size of its user base which will need to grow to ensure its longevity.
- atomic_princess 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - dijit 1y ago
    Linux supports much less hardware than NetBSD. There are entire categories of computers that simply cannot run Linux. SPARC64 as an example in this very comment section.
    - casept 1y ago
      Sure, but one is much more likely to have some ARM(64) SBC / smartphone / tablet / IoT device laying around than a SPARC box. Those are much more likely to have Linux than NetBSD drivers. Support for ancient architectures doesn't matter nearly as much as that.
- dijit 1y ago
  eh, I don't use it, I chucked $150 their way. Having NetBSD around is a net win, and the cost of doing business for them is extremely low for the product they provide.
  - jaypatelani 1y ago
    Thanks a lot:)
irusensei 1y ago
This year I've seen some retro tech YouTube videos about people putting modern NetBSD in their expensive PDPs and Vax machines. Dave Plumber comes to mind.
sammy2255 1y ago
What is NetBSD?
- munchlax 1y ago
  It's the amount of BSD you have from gross BSD after paying all the technical debts.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    EBITDABSD.
  - rkomorn 1y ago
    But then what does that make FreeBSD?
- torstenvl 1y ago
  It's a BSD variant dedicated to running on a wide variety of hardware. One of the running jokes is that you can "run it on a toaster" — see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45712368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45712368
  - bombcar 1y ago
    If it can run DooM it can run NetBSD.
    - justin66 1y ago
      Not really. Doom just requires a 32 bit CPU (maybe someone even kluged it together on a 16 bit platform?) but NetBSD requires a CPU with an MMU.
- atomic_princess 1y ago
  [flagged]
- spauldo 1y ago
  NetBSD is the slim, small, traditional BSD that has an emphasis on clean code and portability. It's great for small jobs and it'll run on that old SPARC that's collecting dust in the closet. It's simpler than FreeBSD (the industrial strength BSD) and doesn't have the hyper focus on security that OpenBSD does.
jorgemendes 1y ago
Donated. I hope NetBSD becomes a stronger option for my old PCs. So many good old machines that could benefit from it.
- jmclnx 1y ago
  Same here. But one other thing to add for new responses about "Why NetBSD", the rump kernel. Years ago I had to get a very old document off of a DOS diskette. So I tried: * On Linux: accessing the diskette would cause a panic or a reboot or massive read failures. * FreeBSD: panics all the time * NetBSD: panics. But then I remembered it had rump. So I said, why not try that. Started up rump, got a few code dumps, but after a some tries I got a bit over 90% of the document off of the diskette. The main system had no issues with the rump kernel crashing. So that alone is worth the "price of admission" :)
  - atomic_princess 1y ago
    FYI rump is essentially unmaintained since its author left NetBSD years ago
  - jaypatelani 1y ago
    Wow this is cool. I always get fascinated by how people have used NetBSD.
  - nolist_policy 1y ago
    Linux can do that with User Mode Linux.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot for donations:)
  - mlyle 1y ago
    Thank -you- for all you do! Donated. NetBSD has been a labor of love for a long, long time. In the mid-90's I was a teenager with a 486-25 on a desk in a closet running NetBSD 0.9-1.0, connected to 10base2 going to my dad's office where there was a computer that dual booted to Linux. I learned so much from those systems; systems programming, how to really use the C programming language, sysadmin skills, reading network traces. A whole part of who I am today derives from those early experiences trying to figure out what the $## was going on while tracking -CURRENT.
nobodyandproud 1y ago
For as long as I can remember, there was NetBSD and FreeBSD (OpenBSD and DragonFly came later). I suppose after 30+ years, any chance of consolidation is hopeless and undesirable?
- E39M5S62 1y ago
  Code aside, the goals for each project are vastly different. There's nothing to be gained by consolidation.
  - nobodyandproud 1y ago
    Every Linux distro has different goals. But a unified kernel (more or less). For hardware, can a single device driver be made for all variants of BSD? If so, then I agree.
    - cperciva 1y ago
      There's a lot of shared code.
    - spauldo 1y ago
      You aren't going to see OpenBSD share a kernel with anyone - it's too different and makes trade-offs the others won't accept. And NetBSD doesn't need the heavyweight kernel FreeBSD uses. From what I've seen, the BSD community swaps code around on a regular basis. But they pick and choose what code to use based on their own goals. It seems to work pretty well.
      - nobodyandproud 1y ago
        I know nobody will touch this with a ten foot pole, but from a thousand mile view the BSDs seem like a good candidate for a microkernel.
  - AtlasBarfed 1y ago
    What are the goals/specialization/actual use of each? FreeBSD: I always got the impression this was trying to be full modern UNIX but non-linux NetBSD: I guess this is for older/less powerful computers based on comments here? OpenBSD: ???Security??? Dragonfly: a schism over threading, but FreeBSD?
tonyhart7 1y ago
what is different than OpenBSD or just BSD???
- dijit 1y ago
  "BSD" doesn't really exist as far as I'm aware. It was a proprietary operating system made at Berkeley for studying OS design. OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD are open source continuations of the source-available 4.4-BSDlite code (removing AT&T proprietary extensions iirc). OpenBSD follows BSD principles but focuses on code clarity and security. FreeBSD tries to be very flexible, putting user-experience over security. (it has to be noted that OpenBSD is very usable, but lacks a lot of nice features like ZFS and DTrace that FreeBSD supports). NetBSD is all about being incredibly lean and portable. NetBSD will run on basically anything, even things that Linux and other *BSD's have no hope of running on.
  - mistercheph 1y ago
    What about DragonFlyBSD?
    - dijit 1y ago
      DragonflyBSD is trying to be extremely progressive in their OS design by leaning in to how we're architecting new computers. So, leaning in to how SSD's behave instead of how HDD's behave- ensuring that the kernel can make effective use of multiple cores etc;
    - dlcarrier 1y ago
      It forked off of FreeBSD, around 20 years after the creation of NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    There absolutely was a real-world non-research operating system called just "BSD", and it ran primarily on DEC VAX hardware to start. Other Unixes like SunOS eventually started basing themselves on it. The last official Berkeley Software Distribution was 4.4BSD-Lite in 1994, which by then had been ported to many other platforms, including i386. The Computer Systems Research Group which maintained BSD disbanded the next year.
dainiusse 1y ago
Donated. I an thankful to NetBSD - I built some routers back in 2000. Long live NetBSD!
- munchlax 1y ago
  And let me guess... You haven't had to replace them since?
  - dainiusse 1y ago
    They don't exist anymore. No need to be sarcastic. But they gave me plenty of experience
  - jpgvm 1y ago
    Migrated them onto a toaster to reduce hardware footprint.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :)
xyproto 1y ago
Does NetBSD really help reduce e-waste any more than Linux already does?
- atomic_princess 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - rfrey 1y ago
    I think they were talking about physical computers ending up in landfills. Edit: nvmd, I see this account was created 20 minutes ago and has only low-effort comments attacking BSD. I've never understood how people can develop such negative feelings about technologies.
  - jamesnorden 1y ago
    That's not what e-waste means.
- xhkkffbf 1y ago
  Some of the Linux distros are getting pretty fat and don't work so well on older hardware. Of course some are lean too. But NetBSD has a goal.
  - xyproto 1y ago
    Lean Linux distros also have goals?
- unleaded 1y ago
  Maybe not yet but I can see Linux's place as the shitbox saviour start slipping a bit in the next few years. Debian dropping x86, distros getting fatter in general.. I can't really see those trends reversing. Meanwhile NetBSD goes against them. However it goes, the main issue is one no operating system can solve which is modern life relying on the Web and beefier browsers. Unless you want to rebel against that you're probably better off getting a laptop from the past 10 years for < £100 on eBay.
jrmg 1y ago
NetBSD is a powerful force for sustainability. Foundation's commitment to running on a vast array of hardware—new and old—helps reduce e-waste. Old laptops and single-board computers that would otherwise be in a landfill are given new life as robust firewalls, file servers, or even retro-gaming machines, all thanks to NetBSD. Emotionally I like this - but thinking more dispassionately, these systems use, by modern standards, a huge amount of power. I wonder if, for many (most?) of them, it whould not be more environmentally responsible to replace them with modern, less power-hungry devices.
- dijit 1y ago
  You know, I wonder about that. The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment (I've heard 85% of lifetime carbon emissions from computers are from the manufacturing process), and I strongly suspect that we don't take that into consideration since we greenwash ourselves by forcing China to do our dirty work, chastising them for it, and then patting ourselves on the back for buying "more energy efficient chips".
  - bombcar 1y ago
    Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” but in general it’s better to reuse and reduce than to recycle. But if the cost of a new machine is the same as a year or two of the old operating the new is probably the way to go.
    - dijit 1y ago
      I'm saying that I think "cost" in terms of money is not a good proxy for environmental impact.
    - mmooss 1y ago
      > Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” They aren't; among other things, most environmental harm is externalized. When you buy things that produce climate change or microplastics, the cost of the impact is paid by society generally.
  - 1y ago
allywilson 1y ago
"I'm Doing My Part"
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :)
cntlzw 1y ago
Donated.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot:)
lukaslalinsky 1y ago
I'm curious what do people use NetBSD for?
- owl_vision 1y ago
  i ran NetBSD as a desktop on BeagleBoneBlack from circa 2010 until recently when I donated the hardware to a CompSci student. ...and as others mentioned it: the rump kernel.
- spauldo 1y ago
  It's my nameserver/DHCP server. I used to have it set up as an iSCSI target for backups and as a boot server for my firewall, but I do something else these days. My main reason for using NetBSD for this is to have easy access to the man pages. Like the other BSDs, the man pages are exceptionally well-written and are a tremendous resource for doing POSIX programming. Plus I find myself digging through the code when I'm interested in how something is implemented. Having a local repository of good C code with a liberal license is worth having the extra OS to manage.
- brandonmenc 1y ago
  It was my desktop daily driver circa year 2000. Not sure what people use it for now.
- Narishma 1y ago
  I use it on a couple of old laptops that Linux no longer supports.
owl_vision 1y ago
an offspring to build your own minimal BSD UNIX system: https://www.smolbsd.org/ https://www.smolbsd.org/
skullone 1y ago
Donated! Thank you very much, NetBSD was one of my first experiences, on a Pentium 60 with a 504MB hard drive. It made me who I am today, eternally grateful to have learned from such amazing and talented people.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :)
_0xdd 1y ago
Just donated. I run a NetBSD instance on a VPS and on an old Lenovo mini PC that I use as a gateway/file server between my regular network and network of vintage PCs. I have two XT clones, two ATs, some 486s, a Pentium MMX, and an iMac G3 and G4. Fun hobby! I need to get NetBSD running on one of these old machines one of these days.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :)
  - fithisux 11mo ago
    Just donated to NetBSD foundation and one month ago to ReactOS project. Keep up the good work guys!
    - jaypatelani 11mo ago
      Thanks for donations :)
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Do any governments use NetBSD? If so, they should be the #1 name and shame.
  - greenavocado 1y ago
    Yes, let's name and shame software users /s
    - mixmastamyk 1y ago
      ”Now, that, I got me some Seagram's gin, Everybody got they cups, but they ain't chipped in”—Snoop
  - tossit444 1y ago
    I guess we're all complicit to <insert war crime> for using and developing software that anyone can use freely...
rootnod3 1y ago
Donated. I think what NetBSD is missing, but also hard to pull off, is something like https://openbsd.amsterdam https://openbsd.amsterdam. A service that people can use where parts of the fees go towards the foundation.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :) agree with your idea.
guerrilla 1y ago
That's so cheap compared to what they provide. Amazing.
rfmoz 1y ago
An interesting thread about the upgrade exists on the same list that the link points to, just a few messages earlier. Hopefully, with the donations, the project can improve the existing friction points - https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/10/01/msg033192.html https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/10/01/msg033...
jonahx 1y ago
Out of pure curiosity, is all the actual programming work for the foundation provided free of charge by volunteers? And the foundation expenses are mostly legal and administrative? It wasn't clear to me based on the financials: https://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2023.html https://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2023.htm... Maybe the consulting section includes payments for programming work? Presumably at cheap rates, if so?
- fujigawa 1y ago
  >Maybe the consulting section includes payments for programming work? Presumably at cheap rates, if so? Have we reached the point on the timeline where we believe low-level operating system code should be acquired at "cheap rates"? While simultaneously, I assume, believing webshit cloud bollocks still demands top dollar?
  - jonahx 1y ago
    I do not hold that belief, and nothing in my reply implies that I do. Per the link I included, the total spent on consulting was 17,939.51 USD. So, if they were paying people, the people were working cheaply. But the consulting may have been for non-programming work. Hence my question.
adamthegoalie 1y ago
Things like NetBSD seem like an obvious use case for tokens and DAOs (funding and governing treasuries for non-crypto open source software projects). Why is this not more common already?
olivia-banks 1y ago
Donated!! I run a small cluster of a few nodes I bought for cheap, and I’m experimenting with SSI on them. The kernel is really nice to read and modify.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot:)
johnisgood 1y ago
NetBSD has some goodies, too, by the way! proplib (property list library for kernel-userspace communication), RUMP (Rump Kernel - anykernel framework allowing kernel code to run in userspace), Veriexec (verified exec integrity subsystem using cryptographic fingerprints), LFS (Log-structured File System - NetBSD maintains the only production LFS implementation), WAPBL (Write Ahead Physical Block Logging - metadata journaling), ATF (Automated Testing Framework - originated from NetBSD, now used across BSDs), etc. Feel free to check them out! Each one of them is interesting, IMO. Beyond these specific features, NetBSD's real strength is its extreme portability (runs on over 50 hardware platforms, from VAX to ARM to obscure embedded systems), exceptionally clean and readable codebase, and pkgsrc (a portable package system that works across BSDs, Linux, and other Unix-like systems). I believe it makes NetBSD valuable not just as an OS, but as a reference implementation and research platform. The code quality and documentation are outstanding for anyone studying OS internals as well. :) I noticed someone asked what NetBSD is. I am happy to break down the different BSD flavors (NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD) and their unique features if that would be helpful!
- colonelspace 1y ago
  Please do break down the differences.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    I could not hold myself back, so I already elaborated on OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD here (albeit it is non-exhaustive): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45714491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45714491 :D I left out FreeBSD from that comment, which has its own set of innovations: Capsicum (capability-based security framework), Jails (OS-level virtualization/containerization which predates Docker by over a decade), MAC Framework (Mandatory Access Control for fine-grained security policies), GEOM (modular disk I/O framework), Linuxulator (Linux binary compatibility layer), ZFS (FreeBSD has arguably the best ZFS implementation outside of Solaris), bhyve (type-2 hypervisor), and so forth. Userland tools include iocage/bastille (jail managers), poudriere (package building), jemalloc (default allocator which focuses on fragmentation avoidance and scalability) among many others. Each BSD really does have its own character. FreeBSD leans toward performance and production use, OpenBSD toward security and correctness, NetBSD toward portability and clean design, DragonflyBSD toward alternative SMP approaches! (illumos/OpenIndiana is quite interesting, too (see DTrace, Doors IPC, Zones, SMF, Contracts, Event Ports, RBAC)).
self_awareness 1y ago
Donated. While I don't use NetBSD, the existence of projects like this is essential for open source technology, operating system design, and the overall vitality of programming culture.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot:)
phendrenad2 1y ago
Big fan of NetBSD. From the perspective of a kernel hacker, I found the NetBSD codebase to be very readable and easy to work with. FreeBSD and OpenBSD, while being more fully-featured and security-minded respectively, had to make compromises in their codebase as a result.
GeorgeTirebiter 1y ago
I just donated. It's important to keep projects like NetBSD vital, as a monoculture benefits nobody but the monoculturists. I think of it as a way to help ensure Survival of the Species - by diversity.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot :)
jmmv 1y ago
Donated! I should have done this months ago when I started using NetBSD for an embedded project idea (that has gone nowhere). But I feel this link illustrates a big problem with NetBSD’s “no hype” approach: I clicked the link you shared and found an email. The email has the donation link at the very end, and it’s not clickable. When I go to the donation page, there is a ton of text before I even get to see an ugly PayPal tiny button or a tiny form to donate via Stripe. It’s too hard to notice and too hard to do. The project’s homepage does a better job though. But I think it should be made even more prominent if this is critical for the project’s health!
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot for donation :)
fud101 1y ago
I always avoided the BSDs due to hardware support concerns (Eg some laptop, gpu etc). But now I wonder if we can use them for containers etc?

406 points by jaypatelani 1y ago

https://netbsd.org/donations/ https://netbsd.org/donations/

It’s so annoying that none of the corps using it aren’t putting a cent in and they ask individual developers to donate. Meh

sgt 1y ago
I'd hope at least some of the NetBSD developers are paid to work on the OS as part of their day jobs.
pjmlp 1y ago
That is the wonder of BSD like licenses for big corps. If Linux never happened, we would still be using big iron UNIXes, each taking whatever they felt like from BSD variants. Notice how all the new FOSS operating systems for IoT devices none of them use GPL, NutXX, FreeRTOS, Zephyr, Arduino libs, IDF,...
- layer8 1y ago
  OTOH, if Linux never happened, much more work would be put into *BSD.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Not really, as anyone that was already using UNIX at the time is aware of, and the whole UNIX V6 vs BSD integrations as baseline for Aix, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX,....
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Absent something like OpenSolaris really taking off, the popular opinion in my circles is that *BSD would have (which is at least related to the same thing). Unless you believe Windows would have "won" which is certainly the side-bet a lot of companies were making at the time.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- spauldo 1y ago
  No, we wouldn't. Linux climbed its way up to overtake proprietary UNIX despite being less capable, which it very much was at the time. Linux came around at the right time when the Internet was going public and regular people had access to hardware that could run a decent UNIX. People latched onto it because it was free and an interesting project. The free BSDs were just late enough to the party that they missed out on the momentum. All the proprietary UNIX vendors (other than SCO) relied on expensive proprietary hardware sales. Intel ate their lunch while they were too busy stabbing each other in the back to notice. Linux killed SCO because SCO was, quite frankly, overpriced crap. None of this had anything to do with the license, other that the fact you could use it for free. It was all about hardware availability, the rise of the Internet, the wave of new IT people who had experienced Linux at home, and the fact that Linux on Intel was good enough to replace those pricy proprietary machines. Now, you wanna talk Apple, there's where your code "theft" kicks in. But that's a whole different thing.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    I was there, hence why it it easy to get quotes like these, > 1998: Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux Without big money from UNIX vendors like those, cutting down their R&D costs, Linux would not have climbed anything. GPL was the reason why they collaborated instead of being able to assimilate the code as they were doing with BSD, like anything sockets related. Ironically IBM has recouped its investment, now as Red-Hat owners. That is where everything on GNU/Linux that is mainly done by Red-Hat like GNOME, Gtk, GCC, Java is being paid for.
    - spauldo 1y ago
      Yeah, I was there too. The three companies you list are horrible examples. IBM is kind of a UNIX vendor, sort of, but not like Sun or DEC. They sell solutions, and the solutions that use AIX don't overlap with what Linux was capable of in 1998. I'd argue that, given their complete disregard for Tru-64 and pretty much all things DEC, Compaq was never a UNIX vendor - they just inherited a bunch of legacy systems they needed to support. They certainly didn't push for new Tru-64 based systems. Oracle wasn't a UNIX vendor at all and wouldn't become one for quite some time. BSD sockets are also a bad example. They were the reference implementation, paid for by DARPA. The entire purpose of BSD sockets was to be copied into other operating systems. You'll notice that Linux copied them as well. IBM and Compaq invested in Linux because they wanted something that ran on their lower-end server hardware and could handle web traffic. Oracle invested in Linux because they wanted to be the backend to all these new websites that were cropping up. IBM, Oracle, and Compaq didn't give a rat's ass about the operating system code - they wanted the platform. If Linux had never happened and FreeBSD became the new hot thing all the online hackers were talking about, the result would have been exactly the same. They'd have poured money into the projects rather than trying to make their own thing because that's the financially sensible thing to do. The UNIX wars were over, and proprietary software lost. Meanwhile, the last major UNIX vendor - Sun Microsystems - was giving away its own source code under the CDDL. FreeBSD ended up adopting a lot of it. That's the complete opposite effect from what you're talking about. Sun got involved in the GNOME project and even deprecated their own CDE desktop in favor of it. Was it because it was GPL? No. It was because they saw that all the new desktop software was coming out of the Linux community, who didn't have access to CDE. Even if GNOME had been BSD licensed they would still have switched to it, because they were still trying to keep the workstation market alive at that point and CDE was quickly becoming irrelevant. As far as I can see, the only companies interested in taking operating system code were the network appliance vendors and Apple. It only worked for them because they didn't care about compatibility.
- bentley 1y ago
  > That is the wonder of BSD like licenses for big corps. You mean any free software license, BSD or otherwise. Notice how NetBSD isn’t asking for code contributions, but for monetary contributions. The GPL doesn’t cover that either. Observe the current rugpulling fad to relicense free software (both permissive and copyleft) to nonfree protectionist licenses like BUSL and SSPL in order to monetize.
unleaded 1y ago
I wonder if there'll be some big cultural shift in open source as people get more annoyed at cases of big companies taking their code and giving nothing back/demanding them to work for free. Might already be happening just slowly
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  The people at the big companies who share the cause are not the ones who have anything important to decide there.
- forgetfulness 1y ago
  AGPL and non-compete licenses like SSPL and FSL have been steadily adopted —Redis, ElasticSearch and Liquibase notably switched to them—, pretty much motivated by not wanting to be screwed over by Big Tech one way or another. More than fine if you ask me, giving away your work for megacorps and oligarchs to steamroll your business or otherwise society at large isn’t much of a public service in the end
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Yeah I have been thinking more and more about source available. I am not sure about AGPL as I feel like, some companies might still use it. honestly, it depends but all the companies which use non compete license somehow diverts back to AGPL if they were open source before So if some company/product was open source and then used source available license, the backlash would be so much that they go to something like AGPl most of the time but that happens because people feel betrayed because some might have contributed thinking its foss forever so its a rug pull I think a good idea could be to have a source available license from the start so that everybody who ever contributes knows this as a fact. What are your thoughts? What should I or anyone else pick? As a "foss" advocate, I would prefer AGPL but I don't want to get screwed by Big Tech ever with all the loopholes that they can have (like AWS), Honestly I don't know which is why I am asking really.
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
fidotron 1y ago
Are there any major corporations using NetBSD today? I know in the past things like the network stack had been repurposed to other mainstream products.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Well NASA currently using pkgsrc of NetBSD for their NAS https://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/support/kb/using-software-packages-in-pkgsrc_493.html https://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/support/kb/using-software-pack...
alecco 1y ago
From Big Tech to startups, most corporations waste billions in ridiculous and frivolous projects and yet insignificant money is sent back to the projects they owe their very existence. But don't you dare switch to a proprietary license or you will be dragged across social media as an evil selfish person. Even if it's only postponing source releases for a couple of years.
spauldo 1y ago
I doubt NetBSD gets much use by "big corps." It's used by hobbyists, researchers, and universities.
dlcarrier 1y ago
Amazon and Netflix have both made major BSD contributions, although I don't know if any are specific to NetBSD.

jmclnx 1y ago

Such an underfunded project. Even with such low resources they can get a lot done.

motorest 1y ago
It surprised me that a project such as NetBSD only managed to raise ~$10k throughout the year. What's going on with the project?
- atomic_princess 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jmclnx 1y ago
  The last few years or so, its activity seemed to have increased quite a bit, or maybe they are getting more press then they have had in many years :) FWIW, this is the first time I have ever seen any mention of donations on any major tech WEB site.

bfkwlfkjf 1y ago

OT what's with the email addresses with percent signs in them?

layer8 1y ago
See http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_network/x-087-2-mail.address.html#:~:text=Then%20there%20is%20the%20 http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_network/x-087-2-mail.address.... (next to last paragraph)
- berikv 1y ago
  “Then there is the % address operator: user %domainB@domainA is first sent to domainA, which expands the rightmost (in this case, the only) percent sign to an @ sign. The address is now user@domainB, and the mailer happily forwards your message to domainB, which delivers it to user. This type of address is sometimes referred to as “Ye Olde ARPAnet Kludge,” and its use is discouraged“
  - MontyCarloHall 1y ago
    >Ye Olde ARPAnet Kludge Seems fitting that NetBSD's internal mailing lists still use ossified address syntax from a time before DNS.
andai 1y ago
I would guess it's an anti-spam measure. Although if I'm reading sibling comment right, it is actually a valid email address? (Assuming you have a mail server running on localhost.)
- layer8 1y ago
  It’s rather the opposite: Spammers used to exploit that mechanism back when it was more widely enabled.
  - andai 1y ago

wcchandler 1y ago

Do they offer a swag store like OpenBSD or FreeBSD? I realize they only get pennies from those sales but that’s typically my approach, buy a shirt for $30 and make an extra $20 donation.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Yes they do. Here is link https://www.freewear.org/NetBSD https://www.freewear.org/NetBSD

mythz 1y ago

It's really in the best interest of everyone using it to chip in and keep the project relevant. Unfortunately the amount of donations is going to be contingent on the size of its user base which will need to grow to ensure its longevity.

atomic_princess 1y ago
[flagged]
- dijit 1y ago
  Linux supports much less hardware than NetBSD. There are entire categories of computers that simply cannot run Linux. SPARC64 as an example in this very comment section.
  - casept 1y ago
    Sure, but one is much more likely to have some ARM(64) SBC / smartphone / tablet / IoT device laying around than a SPARC box. Those are much more likely to have Linux than NetBSD drivers. Support for ancient architectures doesn't matter nearly as much as that.
dijit 1y ago
eh, I don't use it, I chucked $150 their way. Having NetBSD around is a net win, and the cost of doing business for them is extremely low for the product they provide.
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Thanks a lot:)

irusensei 1y ago

This year I've seen some retro tech YouTube videos about people putting modern NetBSD in their expensive PDPs and Vax machines. Dave Plumber comes to mind.

sammy2255 1y ago

What is NetBSD?

munchlax 1y ago
It's the amount of BSD you have from gross BSD after paying all the technical debts.
- bombcar 1y ago
  EBITDABSD.
- rkomorn 1y ago
  But then what does that make FreeBSD?
torstenvl 1y ago
It's a BSD variant dedicated to running on a wide variety of hardware. One of the running jokes is that you can "run it on a toaster" — see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45712368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45712368
- bombcar 1y ago
  If it can run DooM it can run NetBSD.
  - justin66 1y ago
    Not really. Doom just requires a 32 bit CPU (maybe someone even kluged it together on a 16 bit platform?) but NetBSD requires a CPU with an MMU.
atomic_princess 1y ago
[flagged]
spauldo 1y ago
NetBSD is the slim, small, traditional BSD that has an emphasis on clean code and portability. It's great for small jobs and it'll run on that old SPARC that's collecting dust in the closet. It's simpler than FreeBSD (the industrial strength BSD) and doesn't have the hyper focus on security that OpenBSD does.

jorgemendes 1y ago

Donated. I hope NetBSD becomes a stronger option for my old PCs. So many good old machines that could benefit from it.

jmclnx 1y ago
Same here. But one other thing to add for new responses about "Why NetBSD", the rump kernel. Years ago I had to get a very old document off of a DOS diskette. So I tried: * On Linux: accessing the diskette would cause a panic or a reboot or massive read failures. * FreeBSD: panics all the time * NetBSD: panics. But then I remembered it had rump. So I said, why not try that. Started up rump, got a few code dumps, but after a some tries I got a bit over 90% of the document off of the diskette. The main system had no issues with the rump kernel crashing. So that alone is worth the "price of admission" :)
- atomic_princess 1y ago
  FYI rump is essentially unmaintained since its author left NetBSD years ago
- jaypatelani 1y ago
  Wow this is cool. I always get fascinated by how people have used NetBSD.
- nolist_policy 1y ago
  Linux can do that with User Mode Linux.
jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot for donations:)
- mlyle 1y ago
  Thank -you- for all you do! Donated. NetBSD has been a labor of love for a long, long time. In the mid-90's I was a teenager with a 486-25 on a desk in a closet running NetBSD 0.9-1.0, connected to 10base2 going to my dad's office where there was a computer that dual booted to Linux. I learned so much from those systems; systems programming, how to really use the C programming language, sysadmin skills, reading network traces. A whole part of who I am today derives from those early experiences trying to figure out what the $## was going on while tracking -CURRENT.

nobodyandproud 1y ago

For as long as I can remember, there was NetBSD and FreeBSD (OpenBSD and DragonFly came later). I suppose after 30+ years, any chance of consolidation is hopeless and undesirable?

E39M5S62 1y ago
Code aside, the goals for each project are vastly different. There's nothing to be gained by consolidation.
- nobodyandproud 1y ago
  Every Linux distro has different goals. But a unified kernel (more or less). For hardware, can a single device driver be made for all variants of BSD? If so, then I agree.
  - cperciva 1y ago
    There's a lot of shared code.
  - spauldo 1y ago
    You aren't going to see OpenBSD share a kernel with anyone - it's too different and makes trade-offs the others won't accept. And NetBSD doesn't need the heavyweight kernel FreeBSD uses. From what I've seen, the BSD community swaps code around on a regular basis. But they pick and choose what code to use based on their own goals. It seems to work pretty well.
    - nobodyandproud 1y ago
      I know nobody will touch this with a ten foot pole, but from a thousand mile view the BSDs seem like a good candidate for a microkernel.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  What are the goals/specialization/actual use of each? FreeBSD: I always got the impression this was trying to be full modern UNIX but non-linux NetBSD: I guess this is for older/less powerful computers based on comments here? OpenBSD: ???Security??? Dragonfly: a schism over threading, but FreeBSD?

tonyhart7 1y ago

what is different than OpenBSD or just BSD???

dijit 1y ago
"BSD" doesn't really exist as far as I'm aware. It was a proprietary operating system made at Berkeley for studying OS design. OpenBSD/FreeBSD/NetBSD are open source continuations of the source-available 4.4-BSDlite code (removing AT&T proprietary extensions iirc). OpenBSD follows BSD principles but focuses on code clarity and security. FreeBSD tries to be very flexible, putting user-experience over security. (it has to be noted that OpenBSD is very usable, but lacks a lot of nice features like ZFS and DTrace that FreeBSD supports). NetBSD is all about being incredibly lean and portable. NetBSD will run on basically anything, even things that Linux and other *BSD's have no hope of running on.
- mistercheph 1y ago
  What about DragonFlyBSD?
  - dijit 1y ago
    DragonflyBSD is trying to be extremely progressive in their OS design by leaning in to how we're architecting new computers. So, leaning in to how SSD's behave instead of how HDD's behave- ensuring that the kernel can make effective use of multiple cores etc;
  - dlcarrier 1y ago
    It forked off of FreeBSD, around 20 years after the creation of NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  There absolutely was a real-world non-research operating system called just "BSD", and it ran primarily on DEC VAX hardware to start. Other Unixes like SunOS eventually started basing themselves on it. The last official Berkeley Software Distribution was 4.4BSD-Lite in 1994, which by then had been ported to many other platforms, including i386. The Computer Systems Research Group which maintained BSD disbanded the next year.

dainiusse 1y ago

Donated. I an thankful to NetBSD - I built some routers back in 2000. Long live NetBSD!

munchlax 1y ago
And let me guess... You haven't had to replace them since?
- dainiusse 1y ago
  They don't exist anymore. No need to be sarcastic. But they gave me plenty of experience
- jpgvm 1y ago
  Migrated them onto a toaster to reduce hardware footprint.
jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :)

xyproto 1y ago

Does NetBSD really help reduce e-waste any more than Linux already does?

atomic_princess 1y ago
[flagged]
- rfrey 1y ago
  I think they were talking about physical computers ending up in landfills. Edit: nvmd, I see this account was created 20 minutes ago and has only low-effort comments attacking BSD. I've never understood how people can develop such negative feelings about technologies.
- jamesnorden 1y ago
  That's not what e-waste means.
xhkkffbf 1y ago
Some of the Linux distros are getting pretty fat and don't work so well on older hardware. Of course some are lean too. But NetBSD has a goal.
- xyproto 1y ago
  Lean Linux distros also have goals?
unleaded 1y ago
Maybe not yet but I can see Linux's place as the shitbox saviour start slipping a bit in the next few years. Debian dropping x86, distros getting fatter in general.. I can't really see those trends reversing. Meanwhile NetBSD goes against them. However it goes, the main issue is one no operating system can solve which is modern life relying on the Web and beefier browsers. Unless you want to rebel against that you're probably better off getting a laptop from the past 10 years for < £100 on eBay.

jrmg 1y ago

NetBSD is a powerful force for sustainability. Foundation's commitment to running on a vast array of hardware—new and old—helps reduce e-waste. Old laptops and single-board computers that would otherwise be in a landfill are given new life as robust firewalls, file servers, or even retro-gaming machines, all thanks to NetBSD. Emotionally I like this - but thinking more dispassionately, these systems use, by modern standards, a huge amount of power. I wonder if, for many (most?) of them, it whould not be more environmentally responsible to replace them with modern, less power-hungry devices.

dijit 1y ago
You know, I wonder about that. The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment (I've heard 85% of lifetime carbon emissions from computers are from the manufacturing process), and I strongly suspect that we don't take that into consideration since we greenwash ourselves by forcing China to do our dirty work, chastising them for it, and then patting ourselves on the back for buying "more energy efficient chips".
- bombcar 1y ago
  Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” but in general it’s better to reuse and reduce than to recycle. But if the cost of a new machine is the same as a year or two of the old operating the new is probably the way to go.
  - dijit 1y ago
    I'm saying that I think "cost" in terms of money is not a good proxy for environmental impact.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    > Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” They aren't; among other things, most environmental harm is externalized. When you buy things that produce climate change or microplastics, the cost of the impact is paid by society generally.
- 1y ago

allywilson 1y ago

"I'm Doing My Part"

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :)

cntlzw 1y ago

Donated.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot:)

lukaslalinsky 1y ago

I'm curious what do people use NetBSD for?

owl_vision 1y ago
i ran NetBSD as a desktop on BeagleBoneBlack from circa 2010 until recently when I donated the hardware to a CompSci student. ...and as others mentioned it: the rump kernel.
spauldo 1y ago
It's my nameserver/DHCP server. I used to have it set up as an iSCSI target for backups and as a boot server for my firewall, but I do something else these days. My main reason for using NetBSD for this is to have easy access to the man pages. Like the other BSDs, the man pages are exceptionally well-written and are a tremendous resource for doing POSIX programming. Plus I find myself digging through the code when I'm interested in how something is implemented. Having a local repository of good C code with a liberal license is worth having the extra OS to manage.
brandonmenc 1y ago
It was my desktop daily driver circa year 2000. Not sure what people use it for now.
Narishma 1y ago
I use it on a couple of old laptops that Linux no longer supports.

owl_vision 1y ago

an offspring to build your own minimal BSD UNIX system: https://www.smolbsd.org/ https://www.smolbsd.org/

skullone 1y ago

Donated! Thank you very much, NetBSD was one of my first experiences, on a Pentium 60 with a 504MB hard drive. It made me who I am today, eternally grateful to have learned from such amazing and talented people.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :)

_0xdd 1y ago

Just donated. I run a NetBSD instance on a VPS and on an old Lenovo mini PC that I use as a gateway/file server between my regular network and network of vintage PCs. I have two XT clones, two ATs, some 486s, a Pentium MMX, and an iMac G3 and G4. Fun hobby! I need to get NetBSD running on one of these old machines one of these days.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :)
- fithisux 11mo ago
  Just donated to NetBSD foundation and one month ago to ReactOS project. Keep up the good work guys!
  - jaypatelani 11mo ago
    Thanks for donations :)
AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Do any governments use NetBSD? If so, they should be the #1 name and shame.
- greenavocado 1y ago
  Yes, let's name and shame software users /s
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    ”Now, that, I got me some Seagram's gin, Everybody got they cups, but they ain't chipped in”—Snoop
- tossit444 1y ago
  I guess we're all complicit to <insert war crime> for using and developing software that anyone can use freely...

rootnod3 1y ago

Donated. I think what NetBSD is missing, but also hard to pull off, is something like https://openbsd.amsterdam https://openbsd.amsterdam. A service that people can use where parts of the fees go towards the foundation.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :) agree with your idea.

guerrilla 1y ago

That's so cheap compared to what they provide. Amazing.

rfmoz 1y ago

An interesting thread about the upgrade exists on the same list that the link points to, just a few messages earlier. Hopefully, with the donations, the project can improve the existing friction points - https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/10/01/msg033192.html https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/10/01/msg033...

jonahx 1y ago

Out of pure curiosity, is all the actual programming work for the foundation provided free of charge by volunteers? And the foundation expenses are mostly legal and administrative? It wasn't clear to me based on the financials: https://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2023.html https://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2023.htm... Maybe the consulting section includes payments for programming work? Presumably at cheap rates, if so?

fujigawa 1y ago
>Maybe the consulting section includes payments for programming work? Presumably at cheap rates, if so? Have we reached the point on the timeline where we believe low-level operating system code should be acquired at "cheap rates"? While simultaneously, I assume, believing webshit cloud bollocks still demands top dollar?
- jonahx 1y ago
  I do not hold that belief, and nothing in my reply implies that I do. Per the link I included, the total spent on consulting was 17,939.51 USD. So, if they were paying people, the people were working cheaply. But the consulting may have been for non-programming work. Hence my question.

adamthegoalie 1y ago

Things like NetBSD seem like an obvious use case for tokens and DAOs (funding and governing treasuries for non-crypto open source software projects). Why is this not more common already?

olivia-banks 1y ago

Donated!! I run a small cluster of a few nodes I bought for cheap, and I’m experimenting with SSI on them. The kernel is really nice to read and modify.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot:)

johnisgood 1y ago

NetBSD has some goodies, too, by the way! proplib (property list library for kernel-userspace communication), RUMP (Rump Kernel - anykernel framework allowing kernel code to run in userspace), Veriexec (verified exec integrity subsystem using cryptographic fingerprints), LFS (Log-structured File System - NetBSD maintains the only production LFS implementation), WAPBL (Write Ahead Physical Block Logging - metadata journaling), ATF (Automated Testing Framework - originated from NetBSD, now used across BSDs), etc. Feel free to check them out! Each one of them is interesting, IMO. Beyond these specific features, NetBSD's real strength is its extreme portability (runs on over 50 hardware platforms, from VAX to ARM to obscure embedded systems), exceptionally clean and readable codebase, and pkgsrc (a portable package system that works across BSDs, Linux, and other Unix-like systems). I believe it makes NetBSD valuable not just as an OS, but as a reference implementation and research platform. The code quality and documentation are outstanding for anyone studying OS internals as well. :) I noticed someone asked what NetBSD is. I am happy to break down the different BSD flavors (NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, DragonflyBSD) and their unique features if that would be helpful!

colonelspace 1y ago
Please do break down the differences.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  I could not hold myself back, so I already elaborated on OpenBSD and DragonflyBSD here (albeit it is non-exhaustive): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45714491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45714491 :D I left out FreeBSD from that comment, which has its own set of innovations: Capsicum (capability-based security framework), Jails (OS-level virtualization/containerization which predates Docker by over a decade), MAC Framework (Mandatory Access Control for fine-grained security policies), GEOM (modular disk I/O framework), Linuxulator (Linux binary compatibility layer), ZFS (FreeBSD has arguably the best ZFS implementation outside of Solaris), bhyve (type-2 hypervisor), and so forth. Userland tools include iocage/bastille (jail managers), poudriere (package building), jemalloc (default allocator which focuses on fragmentation avoidance and scalability) among many others. Each BSD really does have its own character. FreeBSD leans toward performance and production use, OpenBSD toward security and correctness, NetBSD toward portability and clean design, DragonflyBSD toward alternative SMP approaches! (illumos/OpenIndiana is quite interesting, too (see DTrace, Doors IPC, Zones, SMF, Contracts, Event Ports, RBAC)).

self_awareness 1y ago

Donated. While I don't use NetBSD, the existence of projects like this is essential for open source technology, operating system design, and the overall vitality of programming culture.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot:)

phendrenad2 1y ago

Big fan of NetBSD. From the perspective of a kernel hacker, I found the NetBSD codebase to be very readable and easy to work with. FreeBSD and OpenBSD, while being more fully-featured and security-minded respectively, had to make compromises in their codebase as a result.

GeorgeTirebiter 1y ago

I just donated. It's important to keep projects like NetBSD vital, as a monoculture benefits nobody but the monoculturists. I think of it as a way to help ensure Survival of the Species - by diversity.

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot :)

jmmv 1y ago

Donated! I should have done this months ago when I started using NetBSD for an embedded project idea (that has gone nowhere). But I feel this link illustrates a big problem with NetBSD’s “no hype” approach: I clicked the link you shared and found an email. The email has the donation link at the very end, and it’s not clickable. When I go to the donation page, there is a ton of text before I even get to see an ugly PayPal tiny button or a tiny form to donate via Stripe. It’s too hard to notice and too hard to do. The project’s homepage does a better job though. But I think it should be made even more prominent if this is critical for the project’s health!

jaypatelani 1y ago
Thanks a lot for donation :)

fud101 1y ago

I always avoided the BSDs due to hardware support concerns (Eg some laptop, gpu etc). But now I wonder if we can use them for containers etc?