As is often the case, I found points where I agreed (at least partially) with the author, and others where I completely disagreed. And that’s perfectly fine.

There was one point, however, where my disagreement was total. I'll quote a part of the article here: “The FreeBSD community is...difficult. What I mean by this is that it feels much like the average Linux community in the early 2000s: it looks down on others (in this case Linux users), it appears rather unwelcoming and at times downright toxic. Any time you mention anything vaguely related to Linux you'll inevitably cause somebody to go on a massive rant about how FreeBSD is better than Linux.

It also seems there's a general dislike for change, even if said change is for the better. It feels like a form of "tech boomerism": change is bad because it's not what we're used to, even if the end result is in fact better.”

Frankly, my own experience has been the complete opposite. The communities around the BSD systems are open, friendly, and extremely approachable - though, of course, everyone has their own personality, and toxic people can exist within these communities as well. When I started becoming more active in the BSD community, I received a completely unexpected welcome. The BSD conferences I've attended have the atmosphere of a family, of close friends. No one shows up to boast, but to discuss, to dialogue. In a word: to build.

But I picked up on two details from the excerpt: “mention anything vaguely related to Linux” and “tech boomerism: change is bad because it’s not what we’re used to, even if the end result is in fact better”. This suggested something to me that was later confirmed when the author mentioned the “three firewalls competing with each other” within FreeBSD.

They don’t compete with each other. They coexist - and that’s a completely different thing. This gave me the key to understanding the previous part as well.

This isn't a battle. We aren't in a ruthless commercial arena where different solutions copy each other to get ahead, hoping to attract "users" (better: paying customers) from the other side. And unfortunately, this is something that has been happening in many "mainstream" Open Source communities for a while now. It's a loss of the Open Source philosophy - of doing something for the pleasure of it, to have something different, and to be open to contributions from others, as well as the idea of making what you create public and free. Whether it's with licenses like the GPL or like BSD, MIT, etc., the spirit is to say: “Here it is. If it’s useful to you, take it. If you want, contribute. Otherwise, you can move on; you have no constraints or obligations.”

I often see curious Linux users arriving in BSD communities, and that’s fantastic. The spirit is almost always positive, exploratory: “What can the BSDs do for me?” And sometimes, that turns into, “What can I do for the BSDs?”

But this isn't a religion - you don't need to choose one - and you can use different OSes based on your needs. I happily use Linux, in its various distributions, for some of my workloads. I'm writing this post on a mini PC running openSUSE Tumbleweed, on btrfs, and it works wonderfully. No BSD, at the moment, has adequate support for this machine. I use Linux, and I'm happy with it.

The purpose of the BSDs, like other Open Source operating systems less adopted than Linux and its distributions, isn't to "win" or to "emulate" but to be themselves. So, arriving in a BSD community and saying "but on Linux..." as if it were an example to be followed, has, over time, become an attitude that is not well-tolerated.

BSD communities value stability - and these communities are much, much smaller than those around projects like Linux and its distributions. It's therefore inevitable that some things will lag behind or that they won't want to embark on projects that might leave something unfinished and malfunctioning. Unfortunately, this sometimes happens anyway. It's better not to seek it out deliberately.

Desktop use for the BSDs has never been a primary focus, particularly for FreeBSD and NetBSD. To judge them on this metric alone is, therefore, extremely limiting and, in a sense, unfair.

So, coming back to the article I read - I understand some of the author's points of view, but calling the FreeBSD community a form of tech "boomers" or "toxic" because it doesn't want to follow Linux's example is, in my opinion, a flawed approach to an autonomous, different operating system.

Let's try to shake off the aggressive, competitive, and monopolistic dynamics when we approach the Open Source world. The plurality of completely autonomous choices is a richness for everyone. Monoculture is always harmful and, in the long run, destructive.

It reminds me of the time when all smartphone manufacturers were trying to copy the iPhone as much as possible. All the phones were the same: either originals or copies, but all extremely similar. How boring.

The operating systems are different, the question is the same, and the outcome is identical. To better understand why these operating systems haven't dominated the desktop market, it's helpful to examine the evolution of the tech industry over the past few decades. While the desktop market has always been dominated by giants like Microsoft and Apple, Linux and FreeBSD have found their success in other devices and platforms.

Anyone with an Android phone effectively has Linux in their hands. Android is based on the Linux kernel, and thanks to its immense popularity, has brought Linux into the pockets of billions of people worldwide. Likewise, anyone with an Apple device, such as an iPhone or a Mac, has a BSD "heart" inside, since macOS and iOS are based on the XNU kernel, which in turn is derived from BSD. Sony's Playstation also has a FreeBSD base, and even Windows itself, with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), has (partially, in a way) embraced the Linux-related world, enabling easy use on all PCs.

The market pushes what is demanded, and there has never been a real demand from any "big player" for "pure" Linux/FreeBSD/etc. on desktops. The desktop market, like the mobile one, is dominated by a few big players (such as Microsoft and Apple), and the average user is not knowledgeable enough (and, in the future, will be even less so) to fully understand the advantage of using a free, expandable, non-obsolete system without planned obsolescence.

Furthermore, the adoption of Linux/FreeBSD on desktops is hindered by the lack of support from hardware and software manufacturers. Many popular applications and games are developed exclusively for Windows and macOS, making it harder for users to switch to Linux or FreeBSD. However, in recent years, the situation has improved thanks to the introduction of portable tools, which allow running Windows games on Linux, and the increasing support for open-source applications.

Even if the desktop market may never be dominated by Linux or FreeBSD, their presence in other sectors provides users with the freedom and flexibility that these operating systems promise.

In conclusion, the year of Linux/FreeBSD on desktops may never come, but their widespread presence and impact on the technological landscape are undeniable. These operating systems will continue to play a crucial role in the evolution of technology, providing innovative and flexible solutions that adapt to the ever-changing needs of users and businesses.

The fateful day has arrived: today I turn 28 years old and celebrate the 20th year of owning a personal computer. Precisely on December 19th, 1987, I received a wonderful Commodore 64 as a gift, equipped with a recorder (not the famous Datassette, but a compatible one that often worked better than the original), two non-microswitch joysticks, and the famous "first cassette". What was it? It was a strictly duplicated audio cassette that one of the two Commodore stores in the city gave to those who went to buy a C64. It contained old games (the first one on side A: Pole Position) that were very popular at that time, and we all saw that first cassette as a symbol of owning a computer.

I did everything with it and tried to avoid letting it steal my childhood. However, my interest was so great that I collected countless cassettes, a beautiful floppy drive 1541-II (which, even today, I believe was a jewel of aesthetics), and so many games that would envy collectors. My favorite? Probably the legendary Zak McKracken which, almost twenty years later, I still haven't finished. Zzap was a must-read, and I fantasized seeing "The Games Machine" or TGM on newsstands, dedicated to expensive and unattainable 16-bit computers. The hidden dream? A Commodore Amiga, just like my cousin's.

After years of C64, my parents promised to give me an Amiga 500 if I did well in middle school (it was 1991). The promotion came, and with it, the Amiga. It was an Amiga 500 1.3, nothing special, but it was beautiful because... it was mine! :-) Unfortunately, I sold the C64 and bought a dot-matrix printer. It's still in use at a relative's house. Over time, I took many expansions: almost immediately, 512KB of additional RAM because I wanted to play "The Secret of Monkey Island," probably the most beautiful graphic adventure of all time. Then an external module with 4MB that allowed me to create many RAM disks and put my floppies on them, to avoid the wild swapping that was so popular at that time. I also took an external floppy and an "Action Replay" cartridge, but I never used it enough. Years passed, and I had the opportunity to try an IBM PS/1 at a friend's house. Although I wasn't impressed, I immediately understood that the future would be on a PC. The Amiga was mostly a gaming machine (in my perspective at that time), and I was growing up. I also remembered that my uncle had a beautiful 386 PC in the office, and it looked really professional. In short, I wanted a "professional" computer too.

It was in September 1993 that my first PC arrived: an Olidata 486 DLC at 33 Mhz. I think it had 4MB of RAM and 120MB of disk, but I wouldn't swear to it, it's been a long time... The processor was a Cyrix and was famous for having a bug for which you had to disable the cache to run some programs in protected mode, penalizing performance. Obviously, it was one of the few 486s without a math coprocessor (which I emulated, with terrible results, via software).

A year later, my first laptop arrived: a Compaq Contura Aero 4/25, a really small and lightweight sub-notebook. It was fantastic, I loved it: its gray-tone LCD screen was almost illegible with so much light, its trackball was inconvenient, and it tended to break the screen hinge, but... it was my laptop! It was a 486SX/25, had 4MB of RAM and 85MB of hard disk. The novelty was that it didn't have an internal floppy but an external one that could be connected via PCMCIA. I wonder if it still works today, maybe on my modern laptop! It was around that time that I became interested in networks. It was the era of FidoNet, and I connected once a day (sometimes twice) to download mail and messages. The calls, strictly long-distance due to the absence of BBS in my city, were always quick, so I didn't have a big impact on my bills. I became a national moderator of VREALITY.ITA and a co-sysop of a local BBS. I was only 15 years old, and none of my friends understood exactly what I was doing and avoided asking for information not to be faced with an incomprehensible monologue, but... I liked it, and that was enough for me.

I openly (almost) attacked Usenet because, in my opinion, it would have induced many incompetent people to participate and, in return, greatly worsened the quality of the conversations. I thought that the Internet was too "dispersive," suitable for general use but not very technical. In part, I was right, the dispersiveness is there, but we have still found a way to have our space and avoid too strong "overflows." However, the fact remains that today, the Internet is accessible to everyone, and the mother of idiots is always pregnant. The conclusions are obvious...

I won't go into the description of all the hardware that has passed through my hands in the following years; it would be impossible and too boring. Perhaps the noteworthy moment was an unspecified day in September 1996, the day I saw an advertisement somewhere that for 10,000 lire, they would send you a box set with six CDs directly to your home, including a "free" and "open-source" operating system. I ordered it, curious. A package arrived containing an archaic Red Hat and a Debian. I did some testing, but I decided it wasn't for me. I still had a way to go (and my Internet connection was still too slow).

I decided to try GNU/Linux again in 1998, before enrolling in university. I put Debian inside, and this time, I was really hooked... the rest is recent history, and I don't feel like telling it. It should be quite clear from what you read on these pages.

I've seen things change, I do things that I couldn't even imagine five years ago, and unfortunately, I don't do some things that would have seemed obvious a few years ago. Anyway... happy birthday to me! :-)