NetBSD

NetBSD is a free, open-source Unix-like operating system in the BSD family. It is known for portability, clean design, and broad hardware support. The project provides a complete operating system, including a kernel, userland, and a packaging system.

It originated in the early 1990s as a fork of BSD sources, created by Chris Demetriou and others to produce a cohesive, portable BSD with permissive licensing. It is developed by the NetBSD Project and maintained by the NetBSD Foundation.

Key features include a monolithic kernel derived from BSD Unix, the NetBSD userland, and the pkgsrc packaging system, which supports building and installing software on NetBSD and many other platforms. The project emphasizes code quality, security, and portability.

Platform support is a hallmark: NetBSD runs on a wide range of architectures, from i386 and x86-64 to ARM, ARM64, MIPS, PowerPC, SPARC, SH, and beyond. It is commonly used in research, embedded systems, and devices that require a portable OS across different hardware.

Licensing: NetBSD uses a permissive BSD-style license for the majority of its code, with contributions under various compatible licenses. This licensing framework allows broad redistribution and reuse.

Development: The NetBSD Project coordinates ongoing development through mailing lists, Git repositories, and regular releases. The packaging ecosystem, pkgsrc, supports building software from source on NetBSD and on other operating systems.