When I first laid eyes on the FreeBSD Handbook, back in 2002, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Six years of Linux, a relationship I've written about elsewhere, across various distributions, had trained me to hunt for documentation in fragments: often incomplete, often outdated, sometimes already stale after barely a year. Here was an operating system that came with a complete, accurate, up-to-date (as much as possible), detailed manual. I was already a convinced believer in Open Source, but I found myself reasoning in very practical terms: if the team behind this OS puts this much care into its documentation, imagine how solid the system itself must be. And so I decided to give it a try. I had a Sony Vaio with no room for a dual boot. I synced everything to a desktop machine with more space, took a breath, and made a decision: I'd install FreeBSD on that laptop and reinstall Linux when the experiment was over.

Spoiler: FreeBSD never left that machine.

At the time I had no idea that this experiment would shape the way I design and run systems for the next twenty years.

I realized almost immediately that GNU/Linux and FreeBSD were so similar they were completely different.

The Unix inspiration was the same, but everything worked differently - and the impression was that FreeBSD was distinctly more mature, less chaotic, more focused. A magnificent cathedral - a form then widely criticized in the circles I moved in - but one that had certain undeniable virtues. Back then I compiled the entire system from source, and I noticed right away that performance was better on that hardware than Linux had ever been. Not only that: Linux would overheat and produce unpredictable results - errors, sudden shutdowns, fans screaming even after compilation finished. My Linux friends continued to insist it was a “hardware problem”, but FreeBSD handled the load far more gracefully. I could read my email in mutt while compiling, something that was practically impossible on Linux, which would slow to a crawl. The fans would settle within seconds of the load ending, and the system felt genuinely more responsive. I never experienced a crash. I was running KDE on all my systems at the time, and the experience on FreeBSD was noticeably superior - more consistent and steady performance, none of the micro-freezes I'd come to accept on Linux, greater overall stability. The one drawback: I compiled everything, including KDE. I was a university student and couldn't leave my laptop in another room - the risk of an "incident" involving one of my flatmates was too real - so I kept it within arm's reach, night after night, fans spinning as KDE and all its applications compiled. At some point I figured out exactly how long the KDE build took, and started using it as a clock: fans running meant it was before four in the morning. Fans silent meant I'd made it past.

The Handbook taught me an enormous amount - more than many of my university courses - including things that had nothing to do with FreeBSD specifically. It taught me the right approach: understand first, act second. The more I read, the more I wanted a printed copy to keep at my desk. So I convinced my parents that I needed a laser printer “for university work”. And the first thing I printed, of course, was the Handbook. That Handbook still contains relevant information today. There have been significant changes over the past twenty-four years, but the foundations are still the same. Many tools still work exactly as they did. Features have been added, but the originals still operate on the same principles. Evolution, not revolution. And when you're building something meant to last, that is - in my view - exactly the right philosophy. Change is good. Innovation is good. On my own machines I've broken and rebuilt things thousands of times. But production environments must be stable and predictable. That, still today, is one of the qualities I value most in every BSD.

Over the years, FreeBSD has served me well. At a certain point it stepped down as my primary desktop - partly because I switched to Mac, partly because of unsupported hardware - but it never stopped being one of my first choices for servers and any serious workload. As I often say: I only have one workstation, and I use it to access hundreds of servers. It's far easier to replace a workstation - I can reconfigure everything in a couple of hours - than to deal with a production server gone sideways, with anxious clients waiting or operations ground to a halt.

FreeBSD has never chased innovation for its own sake. It has never chased hype at the expense of its core purpose. Its motto is "The Power to Serve" - and to do that effectively, efficiently, securely. That is what FreeBSD has been for me.

I love FreeBSD because it has served me for decades without surprises. I love FreeBSD because it innovates while making sure my 2009 servers keep running correctly, requiring only small adjustments at each major update rather than a complete overhaul.

I love FreeBSD because it doesn't rename my network interfaces after a reboot or an upgrade.

And because its jails - around since 2000 - are an effective, efficient, secure, simple, and fully native mechanism: you can manage everything without installing a single external package. I love FreeBSD because ZFS is native, and with it I get native boot environments, which means safe, reversible upgrades. Or, if you're running UFS, you change a single character in fstab and the entire filesystem becomes read-only - cleanly, with no kludges. I love FreeBSD because bhyve is an efficient, lightweight, reliable hypervisor. I love it for its performance, for its features, for everything it has given me.

But I love FreeBSD also - and above all - for its community. Around the BSDs, in general, you find people driven by genuine passion, curiosity, and competence. Over the past twenty years the tech world has attracted many people who appear to be interested in technology. In reality, they are often just looking for something to monetize quickly, even at the cost of destroying it. In the BSD community, that is far less common. At conferences I've had the chance to meet developers in person - to understand their spirit, their skill, and yes, their passion. Not just in the volunteers who contribute for the joy of it, but in those funded by the Foundation as well. And then there are the engineers from companies that rely heavily on FreeBSD - Netflix among them - and they bring the same quality: that engagement, that enthusiasm, that tells you FreeBSD isn't a job for them. It's a pleasure. Which is one of the reasons why every time I attend a BSD conference, I come home even more in love with the project: the vibe of the community, the dedication of the developers, the presence of a Foundation that is strong and effective without being domineering or self-important - which, compared to the foundations of other major Open Source projects, makes it genuinely remarkable. Faces that have been part of this project for over twenty years, and still light up the moment they find their friends and start talking about what they've been working on. That positivity is contagious - and it flows directly into the code, the project, the vision for what comes next. Because that's the heart of it. FreeBSD has always been an operating system written by humans, for humans: built to serve and to be useful, with a consistency, documentation, pragmatism, and craftsmanship that most other projects - particularly mainstream Linux distributions - simply don't have. The Foundation wants to hear from ordinary users. It actively promotes the kind of engagement that brings more people to FreeBSD. Not because big tech companies are pushing to create dependency, but because it believes in the project.

So thank you, FreeBSD, for helping me stay passionate for so many years, for keeping my projects running, for keeping my clients' servers up and my data safe. Thank you, FreeBSD, for never wasting time chasing the trend of the moment, and instead focusing on doing things right. Thank you, FreeBSD, for all the extraordinary people - from across the entire BSD community - you've brought into my life. Friends, not colleagues. Real people. The genuine kind. And when the people running something still believe in it - truly believe in it, after all these years - and the project keeps succeeding, that tells you there is real substance underneath. In the code. In the people. In the community.

FreeBSD doesn't want to be "the best and greatest”. It wants to serve.

The Power to Serve.