One of the benefits of the FreeBSD development model is a focus on centralized design and implementation, in which the operating system is maintained in a central repository, and discussed on centrally maintained lists. This allows for a high level of coordination between authors of various components of the system, and allows policies to be enforced over the entire system, covering issues ranging from architecture to style. However, as the FreeBSD developer community has grown, and the rate of both mailing list traffic and tree modifications has increased, making it difficult even for the most dedicated developer to remain on top of all the work going on in the tree.
The FreeBSD Bi-Monthly Development Status Report attempts to address this problem by providing a vehicle that allows developers to make the broader community aware of their on-going work on FreeBSD, both in and out of the central source repository. For each project and sub-project, a one paragraph summary is included, indicating progress since the last summary. If it is a new project, or if a project has not submitted any prior status reports, a short description may precede the status information.
These status reports may be reproduced in whole or in part, as long as the source is clearly identified and appropriate credit given.