I'm lumping Linux in that group because my impression is that Linus is ambivalent about security--it seems to be just another feature to him (see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/11/05/net-of-...). Additionally, with most of the popular distros, once I install the OS, I have to spend a bunch of time locking things down before I do anything else, whereas OpenBSD has pretty good defaults that I can build up from. Also, when Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distros, started capturing searches by default, that got me questioning their commitment to privacy.
That's not to say there aren't distros and contributors to Linux that care deeply about security--clearly there are. I just don't find the overall ecosystem nor the most popular distros nearly as focused on or as trustworthy on security and privacy. And as the stakes get higher with more of our lives going digital and more companies, states, and criminals trying to take advantage of that trend, I worry.
As for OpenBSD vs FreeBSD, I've had an easier time getting OpenBSD working on my hardware and OpenBSD seems to me more concerned with, focused on, and practically innovative on security--that is to say, they don't just introduce new security features that can be configured and used by someone smarter than me, the OpenBSD folks work hard to introduce new security tech that's on by default with no special knowledge required by the end user, i.e. pledge, W^X.
That's not to say there aren't distros and contributors to Linux that care deeply about security--clearly there are. I just don't find the overall ecosystem nor the most popular distros nearly as focused on or as trustworthy on security and privacy. And as the stakes get higher with more of our lives going digital and more companies, states, and criminals trying to take advantage of that trend, I worry.
As for OpenBSD vs FreeBSD, I've had an easier time getting OpenBSD working on my hardware and OpenBSD seems to me more concerned with, focused on, and practically innovative on security--that is to say, they don't just introduce new security features that can be configured and used by someone smarter than me, the OpenBSD folks work hard to introduce new security tech that's on by default with no special knowledge required by the end user, i.e. pledge, W^X.