Why Are You Using FreeBSD?

[Chris Nehren]

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 19:20:31 +0100 , David Chisnall wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> This is off-topic, 

... and not wrapped at <80 characters.

> I am currently looking at updating some of our advocacy material
> (which advertises exciting new features like SMP support), and before
> I do I'd like to get a better feel for why the rest of you are using
> FreeBSD.  If you had to list the three things you most like about
> FreeBSD, which would you pick?  Are they the same as when you first
> started using it?  

1. Solaris features without being beholden to Oracle.
2. The FreeBSD community focuses more on tech than on licensing and
political activism like a certain freeware Unix "alike".
3. The ports system does a far better job of balancing tracking recent
software releases and stability than other systems of the same sort
(most typically exemplified by certain popular Unix "alikes").

Bonus round, something subjective:
4. Everything "feels right" and "makes sense" on a very deep level for
me, in a way that never happened with the other Unix and Unix "alike"
OSs I've used.

The first item is not the same as when I started using FreeBSD, because
those features didn't exist in FreeBSD at the time. The third reason is
what actually brought me to FreeBSD, after I became frustrated at the
seeming inability of Unix "alike" maintainers to maintain that balance
of recent software and stability (Ubuntu didn't exist at the time, and
the less time I spend using that the better).

-- 
Thanks and best regards,
Chris Nehren