---
title: 25+ Years of FreeBSD and Why You Should Get Involved!
osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/conferences/seagl2019/program/proposals/611
beginning: '2019-11-15T16:45:00.000-08:00'
end: '2019-11-15T17:05:00.000-08:00'
presenters:
- name: Deb Goodkin
  osem_url: https://osem.seagl.org/users/901
  gravatar_id: 157ab0e2e2e6095d0378e4cdf910f228
  biography: Deb is the Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, joining as the
    first employee back in August 2005. Before venturing in the world of open source
    and operating systems, she spent two decades working as an embedded firmware engineer,
    technical marketer, and technical sales engineer in the data storage industry.
    Deb now focuses on learning more about operating systems while advocating for
    FreeBSD around the world. Besides supporting the FreeBSD Project, she's been working
    on introducing more girls and women to STEM. Deb grew up in California and earned
    her undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering from the University of California,
    San Diego, and her Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University
    of Santa Clara.
---

Did you know that FreeBSD is one of the oldest (1993), largest, and most successful open source projects in the world?FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from Research Unix via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), also known as “Berkeley Unix.” It’s known for its reliability, stability, and advanced networking and performance.

I'm going to share FreeBSD's long history, descending from the original UNIX in 1969 to where FreeBSD is at now. Once you understand the history of FreeBSD, you'll learn why more individuals and companies are using FreeBSD and why you should consider using and contributing to FreeBSD too!
