> It is especially appealing as a non-linux opensource project with a BSD (non GPL) license that is fairly well maintained. The Non-GPL license means that a company can use FreeBSD in a closed-source project.

How much of a one way street does this turn out to be for FreeBSD? I've always worried about BSD projects being left hung out to dry because companies have less of an obligation to contribute to the parent project compared to something like Linux, but I'd be interested to see how it works out in practice.

I do remember reading some depressing things about contributions to OpenSSH (a quick google search returns "OpenSSH has no wealthy sponsors, nor a business model. In fact, no Commercial Unix or Linux vendor has ever given our project a cent."), but perhaps FreeBSD is different in that aspect.