December 29, 2016

As we’ve mentioned before, if you’ve ever been to a FreeBSD Developer Summit, or read any of the Foundation entries in the quarterly status report, you’ve heard us talk about how advocating for FreeBSD is an important part of how we support the Project. Advocacy takes many forms, from attending conferences to promote the Project, to creating literature to educate and inform on the latest FreeBSD efforts. We talk about the latest developments on social media, interview community members about their experiences with FreeBSD, and work with companies to share why FreeBSD is their operating system of choice. Below is a list of just some of the advocacy work your support has helped us accomplished in 2016.  

Events Attended or Supported by The FreeBSD Foundation

  • FOSDEM 2016
    • January 30-31, 2016, Brussels Belgium
    • See the Conference Report in the March Newsletter.
  • FreeBSD Storage Summit 2016
    • February 22, 2016, Santa Clara, CA
    • Find out more about the event here.
  • USENIX FAST ‘16
    • February 22-25, 2016, Santa Clara, CA
    • The Foundation was an Industry Partner.
  • AsiaBSDCon 2016
    • March 10-13, 2016, Tokyo, Japan
    • The Foundation was a Gold Sponsor, and a number of Foundation Board members gave presentations. Find out more here.
  • Flourish 2016
    • April 1-2, 2016, Chicago, IL
    • The FreeBSD Project and Foundation were represented in the mini expo.
  • LinuxFest Northwest
    • April 23-24, 2016, Bellingham, WA
    • The FreeBSD Project and Foundation were represented at the expo.
  • OSCON 2016
    • May 16-19, 2016, Austin, TX
    • See the Conference Report in the May Newsletter.
  • FreeBSD Vendor and Developer Summit  and BSDCan 2016
    • June 7-11, 2016, Ottawa, Canada
    • The Foundation sponsored the Summit and was a Gold Sponsor of BSDCan.
    • See the conference report in the June Newsletter.
  • 2016 USENIX Annual Technical Conference
    • June 22-24, 2016, Denver, CO
    • The FreeBSD Foundation was an Industry Partner, and the Foundation was represented at the expo.
    • See the conference report in the June Newsletter.
  • Texas LinuxFest 2016
    • July 8-9, 2016, Austin, TX
    • The FreeBSD Project was a sponsor and both the Project and the Foundation were represented at the expo.
  • The Eleventh Hope
    • July 22-24, 2016, New York, NY
    • See the conference report in the July Newsletter.
  • BSDCam 2016
  • FOSSCON 2016
    • August 22, 2016, Philadelphia, PA
    • The FreeBSD Project and Foundation were represented at the expo staffed by Dan Langille who also gave a presentation.
  • womENcourage 2016
    • September 12-13, 2016, Linz, Austria
    • The Foundation was a Silver Sponsor.
    • See the conference report in the September Newsletter. 
  • SNIA Storage Developer Conference 2016
    • September 19-22, 2016, Santa Clara, CA
    • The Foundation was an Association Partner.
  • EuroBSDCon 2016
    • September 22-25, 2016, Belgrade, Serbia
    • The Foundation was a Gold Sponsor, and a number of Foundation Board and staff members gave presentations.
    • See the conference report in the October Newsletter.
  • OpenZFS Developer Summit
    • September 26-27, 2016, San Francisco, CA
    • The Foundation was a Silver Sponsor.
    • Foundation Board President, Justin Gibbs gave a talk on Fault Management.
  • Ohio LinuxFest 2016
    • October 7-8, 2016, Columbus, Ohio
    • The FreeBSD Project and Foundation were represented at the expo.
  • Grace Hopper 2016
    • October 19-26, 2016, Houston, TX
    • The Foundation was a Silver Sponsor.
    • See the conference report in the October Newsletter.
  • COSC 2016
    • October 15-16, 2016, Beijing, China
    • Foundation Board Director Hiroki Sato gave an introduction to FreeBSD presentation.
  • Bay Area FreeBSD Vendor and Developer’s Summit and MeetBSD 2016
    • November 10-12, 2016, Berkeley, CA
    • The Foundation sponsored the Summit and was a Bronze sponsor for MeetBSD.
    • See the JT Pennington’s Trip report for more on the event.
  • USENIX OSDI ‘16
    • November 2-6, Savannah, GA
    • The FreeBSD Foundation was an Industry Partner.
  • USENIX LISA ‘16
    • December 4-9, 2016, Boston, MA
    • The FreeBSD Foundation was an Industry Partner and the Project and Foundation were represented at the expo. Ed Maste, the Foundation’s Director of Project Development also held a Birds of a Feather session on the Benefits of Using FreeBSD.
  • OSC 2016
    • December 4, 2016, Beijing, China
    • Foundation Board Director, George Neville-Neil, gave his presentation “FreeBSD is NOT a Linux Distro”

In addition to supporting and attending conferences, the Foundation also provides travel grants to bring members of the FreeBSD community face-to-face to both further development of the Project, and spread the word about FreeBSD. This year the Foundation provided grants to 15 contributors to attend events all over the world. Trip reports from the events can be found on the Foundation blog.

New FreeBSD Awareness and Education Materials

Brochures and Flyers:

  • Updated FreeBSD 10 Brochure
  • New TeachBSD postcard to spread the word about the program
  • Google Summer of Code flyer
  • FreeBSD 11  Brochure
  • Updated Recruiting Flyer
  • Updated Get Involved Flyer

If you’d like to help with our advocacy efforts, PDFs of all our brochures and stickers are available online for you to print and distribute.   If you don’t see what you’re looking for, please let us know so that we can assist you. 

FreeBSD How-To Guides

  • Installing FreeBSD with VirtualBox (Mac/Windows)
  • Installing a Desktop Environment on FreeBSD
  • Installing FreeBSD for Raspberry Pi
  • Installing PC-BSD as a Primary Operating System
  • FreeBSD Setup Tips

The FreeBSD How-Tos can be found here. 

New Testimonials

  • Accelerations Systems
  • NeoSmart Technologies
  • Chelsio Communications
  • Crescent River Port Pilots’ Association
  • IXC
  • Stormshield

Testimonials are an excellent way to help increase the awareness and evolution of FreeBSD.
See all the FreeBSD testimonials here.

FreeBSD Project and Foundation Branding

  • New FreeBSD Foundation Website and Logo
    In case you missed it, check out the announcement regarding the updated Foundation logo and new website and how it relates to helping the Project. 
  • Updated Brand Assets Page
    The page now includes more information about the FreeBSD Project and FreeBSD Foundation logos. Please see the Brand Assets page to download approved versions of the Project and Foundation logos.

The above highlights a sampling of our advocacy work in 2016.  Thanks to your ongoing support, we look forward to expanding our efforts in 2017!