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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The FreeBSD [freebsd.org] Foundation [freebsdfoundation.org] is pleased to announce that it has completed work to build FreeBSD without requiring root privilege. We have implemented support for all source release builds to use no-root infrastructure, eliminating the need for root privileges across the FreeBSD release pipeline. This work was completed as part of the program commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency [freebsdfoundation.org].

↫ FreeBSD Foundation blog [freebsdfoundation.org]

This is great news in and of itself, but there’s more: FreeBSD has also improved build reproducability. This means that given the same source input, you should end up with the same binary output, which is an important part of building a verifiable chain of trust. These two improvements combined further add to making FreeBSD a trustworthy, secure option – something it already is anyway.

In case you haven’t noticed, the FreeBSD project and its countless contributors are making a ton of tangible progress lately on a wide variety of topics, from improving desktop use, to solidifying Wi-Fi support, to improving the chain of trust. I think the time is quite right for FreeBSD to make some inroads in the desktop UNIX-y space, especially for people to whom desktop Linux has strayed too far from the traditional UNIX philosphy (whatever that means).

- https://www.osnews.com/story/143733/freebsd-now-builds-reproducibly-and-without-root-privilege/ [osnews.com]

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