The FreeBSD Foundation has published the results (PDF, 62 pages) of a survey conducted among users and developers of the project to understand the state of the community, identify typical usage scenarios for FreeBSD, prioritize development goals, and highlight areas that require special attention. The survey included about 50 questions and had 1,446 participants.
Identified trends:
- 50% of users run FreeBSD on servers, while 18% on PCs, 14% on laptops, and 6% in cloud systems.
- 76% of server users consider ZFS to be the most important feature of FreeBSD on servers. The second most noted feature (69%) is access to patches for security fixes. 58% highlighted filesystem performance, 53% - jails, 52% - firewalls, 43% - system upgrades without reinstallation, 40% - up-to-date versions of server applications, 38% - storage systems (iSCSI, NFS, smb/Samba), 37% - network system performance, 36% - virtualization, 28% - capabilities for routers, 25% - energy efficiency, 24% - tools for enhancing security, 23% - application isolation, and 23% - NAT.
- 76% of surveyed server users utilize FreeBSD for storage organization (NFS, samba, ZFS), 74% for web servers, 69% for firewalls, proxies and routers, 50% for development, 48% for mail servers, 46% for internal applications, and 39% for databases.
- 77% of laptop users prefer Lenovo/IBM laptops, 45% - Dell (respondents could select multiple options), 22% - HP, 20% - Apple, 19% - Framework, 16% - Asus, 11% - System76, 10% - Pinebook/Pinephone/Pine64, and 10% - Acer.
- 21% of laptop and PC users utilize KDE, 20% - Xfce, 9% - i3, 8% - GNOME, 4% - Sway, 4% - Dwm, and 4% - MATE.
- 15% install updates right after they are released, 11% - daily, 28% - once a week, 13% - once every two weeks, 17% - once a month, and 15% - less than once a month.
- A typical participant profile: average age 45 years (17% under 35, 61% - 35-54, 20% over 55), residing in Europe (52%) or North America (33%), with experience working with FreeBSD averaging 13-14 years (45% over 15 years, 27% - 5-15 years, 28% - less than 5 years).
- 29% are involved in development (of which 10% are committers). More than half of developers participated in FreeBSD development in the last year. 72% of contributors reported a positive experience participating in development.
- The main source of information about updates is the website freebsd.org, while newcomers prefer Reddit, YouTube, and blogs, choosing not to use mailing lists (60% of users with over 15 years of experience use mailing lists, while only 22% of those with less than 5 years of experience do).
- Noted a high level of security FreeBSD, especially in server applications. 81% highly rated FreeBSD's work in addressing security issues.
- 90% of respondents believe FreeBSD is a great way to learn about operating system internals, while 93% think it's a good platform for learning system administration.
- About 10% of users are willing to pay for extended release support (access to updates after the regular LTS cycle ends).
- 92% use FreeBSD for personal purposes, while 52% use it at work.
- 74% of respondents work daily with FreeBSD, 18% weekly, and 7% once a month or less.
- The most sought-after software components for daily work include Wi-Fi drivers (8%), Docker (6%), Apple ecosystem applications (6%), Steam (5%), and MS Office (4%).
- 85% use firewalls. 71% prefer the pf packet filter, 31% use ipfw, and 4% use ipfilter.
- 93% of participants reported a positive experience with FreeBSD.
- 94% of participants view FreeBSD as a fully self-sufficient operating system.
Conclusions and steps that FreeBSD developers plan to take after analyzing the survey results:
- Expanding ways to attract new participants to the community by using marketing campaigns and educational programs conducted with the involvement of social networks and educational institutions.
- Increasing support and training — creating educational resources for new users and developers, such as writing guides, publishing content on YouTube, and holding workshops. Implementing a mentoring program to support new users.
- Updating documentation aimed at structuring materials and removing outdated information. Creating a unified website for documentation.
- Improving hardware support. The priority area includes the development of drivers for Wi-Fi and particularly sought-after hardware components. Establishing partnerships with manufacturers aimed at increasing compatibility of their devices with FreeBSD.
- Simplifying and documenting the processes for participating in development. Creating clear guides and conducting training seminars. Promoting mentorship to support new developers.
- Creating initiatives to attract users from regions where the FreeBSD OS is less prevalent. Establishing local websites with information specific to certain regions, translations, and outreach support programs.
Source: opennet.ru
