Thanksgiving - no donation this year

[POSIX.1]

What questions do you think I should ask?

dgoodkin, if I were you, I would use the FreeBSD forums to push projects forward, especially those that need prioritization or those that are struggling to make progress but are important. There are quite a few of those.

The FreeBSD forums aren't just for newbies who want to install RELEASE-15 on some poorly supported laptop for the first time. There are quite a few people here who have many years of experience with FreeBSD. Don't let some complaining here irritate you, because there are people who would be willing to do something if you asked them for some kind of cooperation. That could be at least as valuable as asking for donations.

If I were you, I would ask the forum administrators to set up a separate “Foundation” sub forum where Foundation-related matters can be discussed, Foundation staff can be found, and relevant issues can be discussed. I would suggest, for example, a sub-forum in the top section “The FreeBSD Forums” with relevant subcategories such as “Foundation News,” “Projects,” “We need your help,” etc. Think about it a little and come up with some more good ideas.

I think this is far more effective than hoping for emails to info@foundation and only engaging in dialogue with a few individuals without a broader feedback. I mean, nothing is more suitable and efficient than using the official FreeBSD forums with the domain FreeBSD.org directly.

You could specifically ask for funding, collaboration, or feedback for individual projects here in the FreeBSD forums. These would be relevant questions you could ask here. And I think you'll make faster and more efficient progress with urgent projects here.

I would very much welcome a constructive dialogue that would help us all move forward.

 

[POSIX.1]

dgoodkin one week later

When a dialog stalls I like to mention that every behavior is a form of communication.
It is impossible not to communicate because you cannot not-behave.
Even if communication is being avoided, that is a form of communication.

 

[dgoodkin]

dgoodkin one week later

When a dialog stalls I like to mention that every behavior is a form of communication.
It is impossible not to communicate because you cannot not-behave.
Even if communication is being avoided, that is a form of communication.

My apologies. It might help if I set up email notifications so I know when someone tags me. I appreciate your suggestions, especially some of the sub-forum ideas, and will explore how the Foundation can become more engaged in the forums in the new year. Please note that the annual community survey, which the Core Team and Foundation send out in the spring, is an excellent place for the community to provide its feedback. We use that information to understand which projects we should support, where we can provide assistance, and hear concerns and challenges. Even though we do this once / year, we can compare the responses to previous years to understand if things have improved. Now off to setting up my email notifications!

 

[POSIX.1]

Please note that the annual community survey, which the Core Team and Foundation send out in the spring, is an excellent place for the community to provide its feedback.

dgoodkin I noted the surveys since they started.

Why is the Detailed Report of Findings of the 2025 Community Survey not so promoted to read here like the call to take part?

This year's results are particularly interesting. Did you forget to give us a link here on the FreeBSD forums when the results were published?
Here it is:

https://freebsdfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/FreeBSD-2025-Community-Survey-Report-Final.pdf

 

[ralphbsz]

Why is the Detailed Report of Findings of the 2025 Community Survey not so promoted to read here like the call to take part?

The survey and its results were discussed here. I don't remember whether "the foundation" (meaning staff) ever posted it directly, but I remember starting a thread to talk about it. Most of the discussion in that context was between the "Make FreeBSD another desktop OS that is easy to install and use, and optimized for sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop" and "give it the power to serve". I think people know what side I come down on.

This year's results are particularly interesting.

They absolutely are. As is the direction the funding of new development by the foundation is taking. Note that mentioning those two things next to each other doesn't imply that they are connected.

 

[dgoodkin]

The survey and its results were discussed here. I don't remember whether "the foundation" (meaning staff) ever posted it directly, but I remember starting a thread to talk about it. Most of the discussion in that context was between the "Make FreeBSD another desktop OS that is easy to install and use, and optimized for sitting in a coffee shop with a laptop" and "give it the power to serve". I think people know what side I come down on.


They absolutely are. As is the direction the funding of new development by the foundation is taking. Note that mentioning those two things next to each other doesn't imply that they are connected.

Thanks for sharing it back in September. I just learned that our blogs and reports are directly posted here: https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/blogs-and-newsfeeds.50/. Since the survey results were posted on a webpage rather than a blog post, they were not uploaded to the forum.

 

[Jose]

The survey and its results were discussed here.

They definitely were because I remember being angry about slides 45 and 46, where the bullet points at the top of the slide absolutely contradict the actual data presented in the slide

There are differences in other sources though – especially newer users who more likely to turn to IM, AI or Reddit
and less likely to use mailing list posts or source code.

And

As with getting help, newer users seem less inclined to use traditional sources like mailing lists, newsletters, or the
FBSD Journal -- preferring Reddit, social media, and YouTube to stay up to date.

Look at the data, and you'll see the Forum way outperforms all those alternative means of communications for all users, regardless of how long they've been using Freebsd.

It does make me wonder why the Foundation considers us a red-headed stepchild.

 

[Maturin]

https://servury.com/blog/privacy-is-marketing-anonymity-is-architecture/

I don't want to advertise for that company nor their service, but it summerizes the issue, and shows there are people concerned about it, and solutions are available.
The question is: Do I have a choice, or not?

 

[DutchDaemon]

No, it's a user discussion forum that's hosted by FreeBSD community (I think the hosting costs are paid by the foundation, not 100% sure). I don't think the forum is thought of as the official channel where the foundation speaks ex cathedra. Nor is it the way to reach either foundation decision makers, nor core developers. It's for users to help each other.

I don't think the foundation can have a single "home", other than their web site.

As explained here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/the-freebsd-forums-official-or-not.99667/page-2#post-723931

 

[ralphbsz]

..., but it summerizes the issue, and shows there are people concerned about it, and solutions are available.

Some partial solutions are available. Yes, it is possible to run a commercial (cloud- or computer-type-) service where you can pretend to not know the identity of your customers, because you have not asked them explicitly, and you don't store it explicitly. But the reality is that this anonymity can be easily pierced. For example, even that Servury blog post says explicitly that they outsource payments to a payment processor, who by design and by law needs to know who is paying the bill (the money has to come from a certain bank account or credit card number). And accepting payment by crypto coin only moves the problem to the fact that blockchain only pretends to be anonymous; once you actually begin transacting with coins, you can be triangulated. And even an anonymity-friendly company like Servury has to keep debugging logs, which will contain lots of IP addresses and ports from their users, and there goes anonymity. I think their anonymity is virtue signaling, not reality. It helps them attract gullible customers who think they are privacy focused, when in reality pretty much anything you do in public (including in the public part of the internet) is and has to be trackable.

The reality is that we are not Robinson living on an island. In a society we interact with others humans, and those humans have memories (without memory most of society breaks), and most of our legal system relies on these memories and formalizes them. My favorite example comes, once again, from US election law. I was running the campaign in an election, and one of our adversaries (let's call them Alice, Bob and Christine) wrote a letter to the state election law agency (using their real name and address), asking the following question: can we anonymously campaign in this election by putting signs in our front yards and along public roads? And they got a very official answer from the state agency, in the form of a letter: yes, but you can only place signs on private property, not on public roadways, and if you spend more than $200 doing this, you have to register with the state and identify who you are on the signs. And since the state campaign finance agency (called FPPC here in California) is very public and open, it published both their letter and the agency's response on their web site. The irony is thick here.