December 17, 2019

It’s hard to believe that 2019 is nearly over. It has been an amazing year for supporting the FreeBSD Project and community! Why do I say that? Because as I reflect over the past 12 months, I realize how many events we’ve attended all over the world, and how many lives we’ve touched in so many ways. From advocating for FreeBSD to implementing FreeBSD features, my team has been there to help make FreeBSD the best open source project and operating system out there.

In 2019, we focused on supporting a few key areas where the Project needed the most help. The first area was software development. Whether it was contracting FreeBSD developers to work on projects like wifi support, to providing internal staff to quickly implement hardware workarounds, we’ve stepped in to help keep FreeBSD innovative, secure, and reliable. Software development includes supporting the tools and infrastructure that make the development process go smoothly, and we’re on it with team members heading up the Continuous Integration efforts, and actively involved in the clusteradmin and security teams.

Our advocacy efforts focused on recruiting new users and contributors to the Project. We attended and participated in 38 conferences and events in 21 countries. From giving FreeBSD presentations and workshops to staffing tables, we were able to have 1:1 conversations with thousands of attendees.

Our travels also provided opportunities to talk directly with FreeBSD commercial and individual users, contributors, and future FreeBSD user/contributors. We’ve seen an increase in use and interest in FreeBSD from all of these organizations and individuals. These meetings give us a chance to learn more about what organizations need and what they and other individuals are working on. The information helps inform the work we should fund.

In 2019, your donations helped us continue our efforts of supporting critical areas of FreeBSD such as:

  • Operating System Improvements: Providing staff to immediately respond to urgent problems and implement new features and functionality allowing for the innovation and stability you’ve come to rely on.
  • Improving and increasing test coverage, continuous integration, and automated testing with a full-time software engineer to ensure you receive the highest quality, secure, and reliable operating system.
  • Security: Providing engineering resources to bolster the capacity and responsiveness of the Security team providing you with peace of mind when security issues arise.
  • Growing the number of FreeBSD contributors and users from our global FreeBSD outreach and advocacy efforts, including expanding into regions such as China, India, Africa, and Singapore.
  • Offering FreeBSD workshops and presentations at more conferences, meetups, and universities around the world.
  • Providing opportunities such as developer and vendor summits and company visits to help facilitate collaboration between commercial users and FreeBSD developers, as well as helping to get changes pushed into the FreeBSD source tree, and creating a bigger and healthier ecosystem.

We’ve accomplished a lot this year, but we are still only a small 501(c)3 organization focused on supporting FreeBSD and not a trade organization like many other open source Foundations.

For us to continue and increase our efforts for FreeBSD we depend 100% on your donations. We need your help to continue and increase the work we are doing. Your support directly impacts the Project.

If you love FreeBSD like we do, please help us spread the word and, if you haven’t already done so, please make a donation today. Together we can accomplish even more for FreeBSD.

Sincerely,
Deb Goodkin
Executive Director
FreeBSD Foundation

P.S. If your company uses FreeBSD, please consider sharing information on our Partnership Program.