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Comment by tachion | Hacker News Reader

FreeBSD is not 'just another OS out there' but an important piece of technology powering lots of things we often use: from Sony's PlayStation and WhatsApp, through Netflix and Yahoo, to Juniper and PFSense networking gear and EMC storage and FreeNAS appliance - and many, many more!

So, have you donated yet? We need FreeBSD and FreeBSD needs your support!

https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/

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What really makes me sad is that the BSD license allows corporate leeches like Sony to create incredibly successful and valuable products like the PS4 without ever having to give back to the project that produced the software they rely on. It's obvious that Sony picked FreeBSD over Linux because they don't have to publish their additions to FreeBSD, and can continue to integrate new and improved code from upstream with no obligations whatsoever.

Yes, some corporate users contribute financially back to the project, and we're thankful. But why should we have to be thankful? The GPL already provides a tried and proven legal framework for requiring downstream users to publish their improvements for others to use. Free software is an ecosystem where everyone helps and everyone benefits. When the BSD license allows parasites like Sony to benefit to the tune of billions of dollars without giving a line of code (or a penny) back, that breaks the ecosystem.

I'm calling Sony out particularly because they are not included in the list of corporate sponsors in the article. The Sony games division made $3.2 billion in revenue in quarter 1 2016, this is unacceptable.

> What really makes me sad is that the BSD license allows corporate leeches like Sony to create incredibly successful and valuable products like the PS4 without ever having to give back to the project that produced the software they rely on.

You should not be, because this is what BSD license is for; otherwise the developers would've chosen GPL.

I agree that's what it's for, I just don't think that's a good thing.

> It's obvious that Sony picked FreeBSD over Linux because they don't have to publish their additions to FreeBSD, and can continue to integrate new and improved code from upstream with no obligations whatsoever.

It's obvious that FreeBSD contributors picked FreeBSD over Linux because they wanted to publish their software for people to use with no obligations whatsoever.

If Sony is heavily modifying the FreeBSD code, eventually they'll start contributing back, because maintaining a substantial fork is more effort than upstreaming code. Either that, or they'll end up with a largely frozen code base like Apple's copy of the FreeBSD userland, which is probably OK on a console.

> Either that, or they'll end up with a largely frozen code base like Apple's copy of the FreeBSD userland, which is probably OK on a console.

I think this is what they've settled on and are quite happy with.

For PS5 they'll likely do another from-scratch adaptation of whatever the then-current FreeBSD is.

What could be the reason Sony dont contribute back. Surely it is a tiny amount of money. May be there are problems they have in minds we are not aware of? Just wondering.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if they would change their licensing so that commercial usage allowed them to build a stable income stream and pay more and more developers every year? Also it would be very important to build developer schools and other educational facilities to sustain development in future, what would be much easier with a stable and growing budget.

Let me guess... You have no idea why people chose to use, or contribute to FreeBSD, right? Especially no idea why commercial entities build products based on FreeBSD.

Sometimes there's a cultural disconnect between the hacker news world and some $FOO software thing (FSF, GNU, what have you), but this tops them all.

Developer schools? Was this even a serious comment or was I trolled by Poe's law?

I was not able to find any answer to my question in your comment. I assume you assume the wrong things, also you seem to draw conclusions too fast.

I think you received a perfectly valid answer. It was not a direct answer, but since the presupposition of your question is so deeply flawed, a direct answer is simply impossible.

However, the answer could have been more detailed and less ranting about HN. Maybe the answer could be improved to:

Things work completely different there. In particular, there are already people and companies making money with selling FreeBSD, and these are also contributing back a lot to FreeBSD. They are contributing back for moral reasons, pragmatic reasons or simply because they like FreeBSD, even though (and sometimes exactly because) they are not pushed to do so by the license.

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