Quantum Leap Research and FreeBSD Foundation to Invest $750,000 to Improve Laptop Support and Usability

(BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 20, 2024) The FreeBSD Foundation, dedicated to advancing the open source FreeBSD operating system and supporting the community, announced a strategic partnership with Quantum Leap Research to invest a total of $750,000 in broadening laptop and general platform support for FreeBSD. Quantum Leap, a firm focused on providing solutions to national security challenges, has committed to donate $250,000, and the Foundation has committed to investing $500,000.

The overall target program of work has been costed at $1M, and the Foundation welcomes financial support from other organizations to make up for the $250,000 shortfall.

This program will focus on key usability features for laptops and general computing, including contemporary WiFi, full audio, modern suspend and resume, improved graphics, Bluetooth, and other identified features.

“FreeBSD serves as a performant and secure OS on laptops like Dell ThinOS and a variety of popular desktops. Our most recent FreeBSD Community Survey found that 43% of respondents use FreeBSD as their daily driver. These investments from Quantum Leap Research and the FreeBSD Foundation will substantially broaden FreeBSD platform support, making it a fantastic option for everyone who values stability, security, simplicity, and performance,” said Ed Maste, Senior Director of Technology at the FreeBSD Foundation.

Deb Goodkin, Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, added, “This initiative marks a major step forward for FreeBSD, especially for users who rely on laptops for their daily computing needs. By expanding hardware support and enhancing usability features, we are making FreeBSD more accessible to a broader audience. This investment strengthens the FreeBSD ecosystem and aligns with our mission to promote the growth and adoption of FreeBSD as a robust, secure, and versatile operating system.”

Broadening FreeBSD laptop support and accessibility will advance the Foundation’s strategic objective to accelerate developer and corporate adoption. Ensuring that FreeBSD runs well out of the box on a broad range of personal computing devices encourages developers to use, test, and contribute to the FreeBSD project and will also expand corporate use.

“Quantum Leap Research believes FreeBSD is an excellent choice to serve as the foundation for a new secure computing initiative given its long history of security and stability,” said Jim Miller, President of Quantum Leap Research. Quantum Leap plans to run FreeBSD on contemporary laptops as a hypervisor-like solution using Bhyve to virtualize other operating systems, including Linux and Windows.