Do they offer a swag store like OpenBSD or FreeBSD? I realize they only get pennies from those sales but that’s typically my approach, buy a shirt for $30 and make an extra $20 donation.
It's really in the best interest of everyone using it to chip in and keep the project relevant. Unfortunately the amount of donations is going to be contingent on the size of its user base which will need to grow to ensure its longevity.
This year I've seen some retro tech YouTube videos about people putting modern NetBSD in their expensive PDPs and Vax machines. Dave Plumber comes to mind.
“Just BSD” is effectively NetBSD; while a lot of BSD contributors work on FreeBSD, in terms of continuity of development NetBSD is the clearest direct successor to 4.4BSD.
NetBSD is a powerful force for sustainability. Foundation's commitment to running on a vast array of hardware—new and old—helps reduce e-waste. Old laptops and single-board computers that would otherwise be in a landfill are given new life as robust firewalls, file servers, or even retro-gaming machines, all thanks to NetBSD.
Emotionally I like this - but thinking more dispassionately, these systems use, by modern standards, a huge amount of power. I wonder if, for many (most?) of them, it whould not be more environmentally responsible to replace them with modern, less power-hungry devices.
Donated! Thank you very much, NetBSD was one of my first experiences, on a Pentium 60 with a 504MB hard drive. It made me who I am today, eternally grateful to have learned from such amazing and talented people.
Just donated. I run a NetBSD instance on a VPS and on an old Lenovo mini PC that I use as a gateway/file server between my regular network and network of vintage PCs. I have two XT clones, two ATs, some 486s, a Pentium MMX, and an iMac G3 and G4. Fun hobby! I need to get NetBSD running on one of these old machines one of these days.
Donated. I think what NetBSD is missing, but also hard to pull off, is something like https://openbsd.amsterdam. A service that people can use where parts of the fees go towards the foundation.
An interesting thread about the upgrade exists on the same list that the link points to, just a few messages earlier. Hopefully, with the donations, the project can improve the existing friction points - https://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-users/2025/10/01/msg033...
Out of pure curiosity, is all the actual programming work for the foundation provided free of charge by volunteers? And the foundation expenses are mostly legal and administrative?
Things like NetBSD seem like an obvious use case for tokens and DAOs (funding and governing treasuries for non-crypto open source software projects). Why is this not more common already?
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 43.9 ms ] threadI suppose after 30+ years, any chance of consolidation is hopeless and undesirable?
Emotionally I like this - but thinking more dispassionately, these systems use, by modern standards, a huge amount of power. I wonder if, for many (most?) of them, it whould not be more environmentally responsible to replace them with modern, less power-hungry devices.
It wasn't clear to me based on the financials: https://www.netbsd.org/foundation/reports/financial/2023.htm...
Maybe the consulting section includes payments for programming work? Presumably at cheap rates, if so?