14 DAY TRIAL // The FreeBSD project has received a massive $1 million (€800,000) donation from one of the WhatsApp co-founders, Jan Koum, and the developers are more than thrilled at the fact that they have secured their future, at least for a while.
The FreeBSD distribution is controlled by The FreeBSD Foundation, which is a non-profit organization. As you can imagine, it survives almost exclusively on donations and they have managed to make it work so far.
The project has been around for more than two decades and it's one of the most recognizable names in open source. It's even more impressive as it's not using the Linux kernel.
Right now, FreeBSD is by far the most used BSD distribution and is considered to be a direct descendant of the famous BSD, which stands for Berkeley Software Distribution.
There are a ton of other distros using it as a base, but none of them really comes close. The reason it managed to survive for so long is that it's being used in a large number of fields, including in the WhatsApp company (now owned by Facebook).
FreeBSD no longer has to worry about funding
Like most of the non-profit organizations in the open source world, The FreeBSD Foundation is always looking for funds and it's a difficult job. Now, it got help from one of its users, who in the meantime has managed to become a multimillionaire, and the FreeBSD distro played a very important role.
"The FreeBSD Foundation is pleased to announce it has received a $1,000,000 (€800,000) donation from Jan Koum, CEO and Co-Founder of WhatsApp. This marks the largest single donation to the Foundation since its inception almost 15 years ago, and serves as another example of someone using FreeBSD to great success and then giving back to the community," noted the Foundation on its website.
As it turns out, Jan Koum, who is the CEO and one of the co-founders of WhatsApp, is successful because he had the opportunity to use FreeBSD when he was a kid.
He didn't come from money, so using FreeBSD actually helped him get a better job at Yahoo. After so many years, he decided to help the ones who helped him, selflessly.
"I'm announcing this donation to shine a light on the good work being done by the FreeBSD Foundation, with the hope that others will also help move this project forward. We'll all benefit if FreeBSD can continue to give people the same opportunity it gave me - if it can lift more immigrant kids out of poverty, and help more startups build something successful, and even transformative," said Jan Koum on his Facebook profile.