“Why would one wish to run FreeBSD rather than Linux, a
better-known free OS?”
“The FreeBSD Project’s primary mission is to preserve BSD’s
legacy of success in the areas of networking and robustness…
while continuing to innovate and be receptive to the needs of an
ever-more-demanding customer base.”
“Despite what some free-software advocates may erroneously claim
from time to time, centralized development models like the FreeBSD
Project’s are hardly obsolete or ineffective in the world of free
software.”
“Linux uses the GNU Public License (GPL)… that essentially
gives everything away for free but does not allow the licensor to
make changes to the software without giving those away in
turn.”
“The FreeBSD license, by contrast, is a simple two-paragraph
license that essentially gives the code away for free but asks that
you do not remove the license text from the sources and that you do
not sue the FreeBSD Project… you can essentially do anything you
like with the software except claim that you wrote all of it
yourself….”