endsandmeans

But I appreciate the reliability, the good documentation, the community

These were big reasons for me. Cannot overstate the documentation angle.

Ports. Packages. > DEB/APT/RPM (particularily for a C programmer.

Licensing more friendly to integrating into your appliances (I did this) or code

Before ZFS it was still better for the afformentioned reasons but ZFS was a game changer.

I started Linux with Slackware and writing my own ppp up/down scripts while dual booting from windows, which took 2 weeks to get online the first time, then I went to redhat/debian/mandrake for a few years... then I found FreeBSD at it was like a breath of 'clear' air.

Started using it for my daily desktop in 2002 and I still use it on several converted Macs at home and my main 'office' server which is a VPS these days.

Production wise I would always have to reboot my fbsd servers for EOL never any issues and many uptimes north of 1000 days over the years. That builds trust.

I trust FreeBSD project to be conservative and consistent for the most part -- THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST SURPRISE -- another thing I have not seen enough of with Linux distros.

I agree but let me play the devil's advocate. I'll channel Stallman:

Same argument can be applied to all closed source software.

In the end its about who you trust and who needs to be verified and that is relative, subjective, and contextual... always.

So unless you can read the source code and compile yourself on a system you built on an OS you also built from source on a machine built before server management backdoors were built into every server... you are putting your trust somewhere and you cannot really validate it beyond wider public percetptions.

Most of them jump out as immediately dodgy -- except Stylsh. That is the only one I've ever used on the list but it's been several years.

When the state picks the winners everyone loses.

Run it into the ground!