Thank You!

We would like to thank everyone who has donated to the FreeBSD Foundation this year. We have raised $182,778 towards our 2009 goal of $300,000! We are almost 2/3 of the way to reaching our goal! Oh, and BTW, we have had 663 donors this year. This is compared to just over 300 this time last year. This is important not only to help us keep our Public Charity Status, but it shows there are many users who are passionate about FreeBSD and want to show their support.

With the weakened economy we have been very conservative with our spending this year. But, like each previous year we have increased the amount we have spent on the FreeBSD Project and community. We were blown away with the number of project proposals we received this year. We were able to fund 7 projects this year. Unfortunately we didn't have the budget to fund all the proposals we received.

This coming year we want to double the amount we spend on project development. In order to accomplish this, we need to meet our fund-raising goal.

Why do we need donations?

The goal of the FreeBSD Project is to provide software that may be used for any purpose -- and without strings attached. Our mission is to support the FreeBSD Project and community. Our funding comes from people like you – those who are determined to keep FreeBSD free!

How have we spent the money this year?

• Sponsored FreeBSD related conferences like BSDCan, EuroBSDCon, AsiaBSDCon, KyivBSD, and DCBSDCon.

• Provided 15 travel grants and funding to individuals to attend these and other conferences this year.

• Provided grants for projects that improve FreeBSD, like wireless mesh support, FreeBSD TCP stack improvements, new console driver, safe removal of disk devices, flattened device tree, and high available storage projects.

• Provided equipment for developers working to improve FreeBSD and projects like the NetPerf cluster. We purchased servers, USB analyzers, power controllers, and parts for computer repairs for the Project. We also paid for shipping of equipment to various projects.

• Provided legal support for the project on issues like understanding the GPLv3 impact on FreeBSD, providing a privacy policy, trademark ownership and permission, and other legal issues that come up.

How can you help?

Your financial support is critical for the FreeBSD Project. Please help us keep FreeBSD free. Any amount you can donate will help. And thank you for your continued support of the FreeBSD Foundation.

End-of-Year Fund Raising Drive

We're kicking off our End-of-Year Fund Raising Drive! Our goal this year is to raise $300,000. So far, we have raised just over $159,000 so we are little more than half way towards our goal. Please consider making a donation and help us to spread the word by tweeting and blogging about the drive.

Click here to find out how to make a donation.

Be Counted Campaign

Millions of systems run FreeBSD. Hundreds of volunteers contribute to FreeBSD's success. But what is the size of FreeBSD's user base? This simple question is very hard to answer, but its answer is vital to the cause of promoting FreeBSD. It is extremely difficult to convince businesses to invest time and money to add FreeBSD support to their products based solely on vague estimates of the size of our community. We should know - working to make FreeBSD a more widely supported platform is a task the FreeBSD Foundation has worked on since its inception.

Please help us in our fight to promote FreeBSD. A donation to the FreeBSD Foundation helps fund our work, but it also gives us strength in numbers. Our count of unique donors is a vital indication of the size and buying power of our community. However, we have never broken even one thousand donors in any year. We know in our hearts that this is a small fraction of our user base and of those who want to help expand FreeBSD's presence.

So stand up and be counted! Make a donation. Encourage other FreeBSD users to donate as well. No donation amount is too large or too small. Just by becoming a donor you are making a powerful statement about the strength of FreeBSD!