Get it on Google Play

FreeBSD with John Baldwin

FreeBSD with John Baldwin

Author: Software Engineering Daily March 31, 2026 Duration: 1:03:31
Software Engineering Daily
NewsTechnology

FreeBSD is one of the longest-running and most influential open-source operating systems in the world. It was born from the Berkeley Software Distribution in the early 1990s, it has powered everything from high-performance networking infrastructure to game consoles and content delivery networks. Over three decades, it has evolved through major architectural shifts, from symmetric multiprocessing and kernel scalability to modern storage systems and predictable release engineering.

John Baldwin has spent more than 25 years working on FreeBSD as a developer, contributor, and consultant. In this episode, John joins Gregor Vand to discuss the origins of FreeBSD, how its governance model differs from other open-source projects, its role inside systems like Netflix’s CDN and the PlayStation 4, the challenges of maintaining a 30-year-old codebase, and much more.

Gregor Vand is a security-focused technologist, having previously been a CTO across cybersecurity, cyber insurance and general software engineering companies. He is based in Singapore and can be found via his profile at vand.hk or on LinkedIn.

Please click here to see the transcript of this episode.

Sponsorship inquiries: sponsor@softwareengineeringdaily.com

The post FreeBSD with John Baldwin appeared first on Software Engineering Daily.


Dive deep into the conversations that shape how we build and understand complex systems with Data Archives-Software Engineering Daily. This podcast pulls from a rich library of technical discussions, each one a focused exploration into the specific tools, architectures, and challenges that define modern software engineering. Rather than surface-level news, these episodes offer sustained, thoughtful dialogues with the engineers and thinkers who are working on the front lines of data infrastructure, distributed systems, and emerging technologies. You'll hear detailed breakdowns of real-world problems and the nuanced solutions teams are implementing, providing a practical sense of how theoretical concepts translate into production code and resilient platforms. The archive serves as an enduring resource, whether you're looking to grasp the fundamentals of a new database or understand the intricate trade-offs in a system design. Tune in for a consistently substantive listen that treats software engineering with the depth and seriousness it deserves, all through the unfiltered lens of expert conversation.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Official website RSS
youtubelinkedinspotifyapple_music
Software Engineering Daily
Podcast Episodes
Building Software That People Love [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:26
Building great software always involves technical problem solving, but the best software goes beyond function. It feels fluid, coherent, and genuinely fun to use. This quality lives at the intersection of engineering and…
Mina the Hollower [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:48
Yacht Club Games is the studio behind the acclaimed Shovel Knight franchise. Their latest release is Mina the Hollower, which is a top-down action RPG inspired by classic Zelda and Castlevania titles. After many years in…
Foundation Models for Structured Data [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:00
Predictive modeling is a core element in modern systems, and powers capabilities such as fraud detection, loan approvals, and recommendation systems. These systems typically operate on structured, relational data stored…
Biome and the Future of JavaScript Tooling [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:56
Modern web development requires an ever-growing collection of tools including formatters, linters, bundlers, and plugins. Each tool typically has its own configuration, dependencies, and performance cost. As applications…
Preparing for Q-Day [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:18
Most of the cryptography securing the internet today rests on mathematical problems that classical computers cannot solve in any reasonable timeframe. That assumption is now being tested. Recent advances in quantum compu…
Developing Multiplayer Games in Godot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:21
Multiplayer games are among the hardest software systems to build, requiring developers to synchronize state across unreliable networks while maintaining fairness, performance, and a responsive player experience. Latency…
Web Native Game Development [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:08
The web has quietly become one of the most capable platforms for game development. Advances in WebAssembly, WebGL, and WebGPU have given developers tools that rival native desktop performance, while game engines like Uni…
The Hardware Bottleneck AI Can’t Fix [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:47
Software engineering has developed powerful tools for observability, data management, and continuous testing, but hardware engineering has largely not kept pace. The feedback loops, tooling, and infrastructure that softw…
Autonomous Drone Delivery at Scale [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:30
Autonomous drone delivery has long been the stuff of science fiction, but ongoing advances have moved the space from experimental to operational. Zipline is one of the leading companies in this space, with drones that ch…

«12345»