FreeBSD Foundation Spring Fundraising Campaign - Funding Highlights

Spring Fundraising Campaign - Funding Highlights

As we embark on our 15th year of serving the FreeBSD Project and community, we are proud of what we've done to help FreeBSD become the most innovative, reliable, and high-performance operation system. During our Spring Fundraising Campaign, we are going to highlight where some of our funds are going to show our commitment to helping FreeBSD.

The first project we are highlighting is the UEFI Boot Support. Please take a moment to read about the work going on in this area.

What is UEFI and why is the FreeBSD Foundation sponsoring this work?

UEFI is the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, a new standard for boot firmware -- the software that runs from the time a computer powers on, until the main operating system is loaded.  It was originally developed for Intel’s “Itanium” CPU many years ago, with x86 and ARM support arriving later. 

Many desktops and servers sold today provide the option to choose between UEFI and legacy BIOS boot modes, but some support only UEFI. UEFI-only systems will become increasingly common in the future, so supporting UEFI boot is a requirement for FreeBSD to remain viable on contemporary hardware.

Why did we need a new boot firmware?

The PC BIOS is over three decades old, and was designed with different goals than are relevant today. It was responsible not only for booting, but for providing runtime services like reading files or printing characters on the screen.  As operating systems evolved from 16-bit code to 32- and 64-bit, the BIOS was relegated to providing only the initial boot functionality, but limitations of 16-bit code from the 1980s persisted.  BIOS boot does not inherently support features like large disks, multiple operating systems, or network booting that are now standard.

These issues have all been worked around with various add-ons, but often in a vendor-specific or inconsistent way.  UEFI replaces the workarounds and layers of complexity with a consistent and powerful set of boot services.

What work is the Foundation sponsoring?

In 2013 the Foundation sponsored Benno Rice to perform some initial investigation and infrastructure work for amd64 UEFI booting, which resulted in a working proof of concept.  Ed Maste later refined that work and brought it to the main FreeBSD development branch, giving FreeBSD-CURRENT the ability to boot via UEFI.

Ed and Foundation staff members Glen Barber and Konstantin Belousov will continue with work to build snapshot images, fix bugs, address hardware compatibility issues.  We’re committed to finishing UEFI boot integration, documentation, and installer support, and appreciate the support of the FreeBSD community’s collaboration on some of these pieces.  Initial UEFI support will appear in the FreeBSD 10.1 release, due later this year.

Donate today to help us continue and increase our support of the FreeBSD Project and community worldwide! To make a donation go to: http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/.

FreeBSD Foundation Spring Fundraising Campaign!

We're kicking off our Spring Fundraising Campaign! Our goal this year is to raise $1,000,000 with a spending budget of $900,000.

As we embark on our 15th year of serving the FreeBSD Project and community, we are proud of how we've helped FreeBSD become the most innovative, realiable, and high-performance operating system. We are doing this by:

• funding development projects,
• having an internal technical staff available to work on small and large projects, fixing problems, and areas of system administration and release engineering,
• providing legal support,
• funding conferences and summits that allow face-to-face interaction and collaboration between FreeBSD contributors, users, and advocates,
• and advocating for and educating people about FreeBSD by providing high-quality brochures, white papers, and the FreeBSD Journal.

We can't do this without you! You can help by making a donation today.

Help spread the word by posting on FaceBook, Twitter, your blogs, and asking your company to help. Did you know there are thousands of companies that wil match their employee's donations? Check with your company to see if you can automatically double your donation by having your company match your donation.

Thanks for your support!

FreeBSD Journal Issue #2 is Now Available!

The FreeBSD Journal Issue #2 is now available! You can get it on Google Play, iTunes, and Amazon. In this issue you will find captivating articles on pkg(8), Poudriere, PBI Format, plus great pieces on hwpmc(4) and Journaled Soft-updates. If you haven't already subscribed, now is the time!

The positive feedback from both the FreeBSD and outside communities has been incredible. In less than two months, we have signed up over 1,000 subscribers. This shows the hunger the FreeBSD community has had for a FreeBSD focused publication. We are also working on a dynamic version of the magazine that can be read in many web browsers, including those that run on FreeBSD.

The Journal is guided by a dedicated and enthusiastic editorial board made up of people from across the FreeBSD community. The editorial board is responsible for the acquisition and vetting of content for the magazine.

You can find out more information about the Journal by going to https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/journal. Or, subscribe now by going to the following links for the device you'd like to download to:

Your subscriptions and the advertising revenue the Journal receives will help offset the costs of publishing this magazine. So, consider signing up for a subscription today! 

We know you are going to like what you see in the Journal! Please help us spread the word by tweeting, blogging, and posting on your FaceBook page. You can also help by asking your company to put an ad in the Journal. For advertising information contact freebsdjournal@freebsdfoundation.org.

And, don't forget you can support the Journal and FreeBSD by making a donation today!