FreeBSD Founder Returns to the Open Source World, Aiming to Challenge Linux

Mac OS X may be the most advanced operating system, but its roots are quite ancient. It is based on Unix. Unix was born over 30 years ago at AT&T Bell Labs and gradually became a legend, a belief, and a culture. The open-source movement that changed the world also has ties to Unix. Due to AT&T's commercialization efforts with Unix, its development was hindered, which led to the rise of Linux, inheriting the spirit of Unix and eventually dominating the world. Today, among various Unix-like systems, Linux is the most successful.

In the mobile market, the popular Android system is based on Linux. However, Unix has established itself in another way. Apple adapted a streamlined version of OS X for phones and tablets. Your iPhone and iPad are driven by Unix, or more accurately, FreeBSD, a derivative of Unix. One of the founders of FreeBSD, Jordan Hubbard, joined Apple in 2000.

Last month, after working at Apple for many years, Hubbard decided to leave the company and return to the open-source community. He will become the Chief Technology Officer of iXsystems and apply "Apple's approach" to open-source software. Wired magazine conducted an interview with him.

Hubbard said that Apple's software is excellent, and the operating system feels like a finished product rather than a "toolbox." He believes that open-source systems should be the same: "Many people involved in open-source projects create toolboxes. These toolboxes are great and are used in everything from Tivos to phones, but they remain just toolboxes."

In 1993, Hubbard, along with Nate Williams and Rodney W. Grimes, created FreeBSD. They wanted a single open-source version of Unix that could run on machines equipped with standard Intel chips. "FreeBSD was born out of frustration because we had too many different versions of Unix," Hubbard said, "Each version was different, driving me crazy. I said, 'I can make my own version and ensure everything works properly, achieving some level of optimization'."

FreeBSD achieved significant success on the server side and was widely adopted by companies like Cisco and Yahoo. However, Hubbard hoped to bring FreeBSD to desktop systems. When Apple released the Mac OS X preview version, Hubbard bought his first Mac to try out the system. He discovered that Apple's operating system provided carefully crafted developer software, making it easy to write programs. This was very different from the world of BSD and Linux.

At the same time, he felt a sense of familiarity because the core of Mac OS X, Darwin, is open source and includes code from FreeBSD. Through a friend who worked at Apple, he joined the company. Part of his job was to handle system security and energy consumption. "We had to do things that open-source Unix developers hadn't thought of — for example, how to put UNIX on a phone while ensuring you can call 911 and the battery doesn't drain within an hour," he said.

After many years of working at Apple, he decided to return to server work. His explanation was, "The time has come. Twelve years is a long time, especially in technology. You need to rotate your tires."

Today, Linux's prominence has surpassed FreeBSD. However, FreeBSD is still widely used, and Hubbard believes it can compete with Linux. "It has a better origin," Hubbard said, "If I were buying a car, I would look for a reputable manufacturer." He stated that FreeBSD is more transparent and integrated than Linux distributions.

Jordan Hubbard could have easily gone to a Fortune 500 company, but he wanted to do something different rather than become "a small fish in a big pond." Regarding the impact of his departure on Apple's BSD project, he said that the company has many FreeBSD enthusiasts, and he believes it will continue to develop. If he didn't believe this, he might not have left.