[shep]

From the Distrowatch Weekly Web site:

FreeNAS A somewhat controversial announcement from the FreeNAS project hit the news wires last week. According to media reports and based on a discussion on the project's forum, this specialist operating system providing free Network-Attached Storage (NAS) services will switch from its current FreeBSD base to Debian GNU/Linux for its future releases: "My decision to use Linux for the next version was because there are too many bugs in the core FreeBSD system. Simply have a look into the bug tracker. FreeNAS does not run on many systems, mainly new hardware gives trouble. The main reason is the driver problem with FreeBSD which seems to be no problem with Linux because there are great companies that support it." This rather inflammatory statement was not taken kindly by some FreeBSD fans. However, later in the week, project founder Olivier Cochard-Labbé made a new announcement. It now seems that FreeNAS will continue as a FreeBSD system - after being offered sponsorship by iXsystems (the same company that also sponsors the development of PC-BSD): "A great surprise: iXsystems, a company specializing in professional FreeBSD, has offered to take FreeNAS under their wings as an open-source, community-driven project. This means that they will involve their professional FreeBSD developers in FreeNAS! Personally, I will come back to actively work on FreeNAS and will begin upgrading it to FreeBSD 8.0."