You probably use FreeBSD without realizing it ...

Acronym for Berkeley Software Distribution, FreeBSD is a free operating system derived from Unix. Having a somewhat less glorious popularity than GNU/Linux, FreeBSD does not have to be ashamed of its direct competitor. Just as exemplary in terms of stability and security as the university operating system, it has earned a prominent place in the server sector and also in the rank of the desktop, for a small part of the international computer park. Initially created on the basis of UNIX system, coded by AT&T, the environment that revolves around BSD differs from Linux in particular by the use of this license, much more permissive than the os of the penguin. The devil hides in the details, since Berkley's solution allows you to reuse and modify the code within proprietary systems without any compensation. And that's where I'm coming from, because these terms has aroused the excitement and interest of some of the big names in the IT and technology sector who saw the opportunity to build a low-cost operating system without revealing their source code to anyone. Let's start with a well-known hipster firm, I named Apple!

Mac OSX (Darwin / BSD inside)

To understand the integration of some BSD elements in Mac OS, it is necessary to go back a few decades. Steve Jobs was thanked by his own company and invested in a new company called NEXT. Its goal is simple : to offer its vision of computing, already established within Apple, with functional and innovative devices for higher education and businesses. Steve and his team of developers simply used the tools that were already available during this period (1985) to achieve his goals and gain a major advantage over the competition. This is how the NextStep os was born, using an enriched Mach kernel for bits of code from FreeBSD. Having a stable and robust base, without spending a lot of money on research and development. This marriage of two free solutions made it possible to conceive something very functional, years ahead of the competition!

In constant evolution, this system gave birth to the XNU kernel, still based on FreeBSD-related features. When Jobs regained ownership of Apple, it passed the directive to develop future versions of Mac OS around this principle. This gave birth to the Darwin project which equipped the firm's computers in 1997, after the takeover of NEXT. Up to now all versions of Mac OS and Mac OSX since version 8.0, includes BSD code. Yes, you got it right ! Apple hardware users, your system is basically a mixture of free technologies !

Playstation 4 / Orbis OS

Totally imperceptible, but well and truly used by gamers who indulge in fun on their PS4s, Orbis OS is simply a simple FreeBSD port with components and a graphical interface made in Sony. Optimized for the game, Orbis OS remains a resource-efficient and highly secure system. Sony's tour de force is to offer two APIs (programming interface, like the famous Direct X) simple and powerful owners for game porting on its console.

In addition to the kernel and associated components, other included components take advantage of the BSD kernel such as Cairo, jQuery, Lua, Mono, OpenSSL, WebKit. You can read it in the wiki : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4_system_software . Both of them are open-source software, although PlayStation 4 is not an open console, quite the contrary ! Nevertheless, we would have liked to see Sony contribute to such things in the source code !

Thanks for reading !

There are many other devices that use a FreeBSD base, your modem/router also uses it. However, the enumerated ones would take a considerable amount of time ! So, did you find out that you were using FreeBSD without knowing it? Let's honour an operating system that works in the shadows, for our greatest pleasure!

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Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

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