DutchBSD is a software and engineering company in the Netherlands. Most of our product work goes into DutchBSD Workspaces, our platform for business tools.
A bit of Unix on the web
We're trying to bring parts of the Unix philosophy to the web: tools that each do one thing well, and that can be combined when you need more.
For Workspaces, that means keeping each application's purpose clear. Accounts, team access and billing belong in the shared foundation. As we add tools, we want them to work together where that is useful, while remaining useful on their own.
The Unix tradition also puts weight on simplicity, clarity and predictable behaviour. We want familiar controls, systems we can inspect when something goes wrong, and extra complexity only when it solves a real problem.
Starting with MakeSite
MakeSite is the first public product in Workspaces. It lets you create, edit and publish a website, with hosting included. You choose a starting design, add your content and publish when you're ready. You can use your own domain.
To keep things simple, the sites are statically hosted; that reduces maintenance needs and helps keep them fast and available.
We set a high bar for our templates. They go through HTML validation, automated accessibility checks, keyboard and colour-contrast checks, and tests of layouts on phones and larger screens. We also check the CSS and JavaScript and set limits on page weight and loading performance.
| Lighthouse | Desktop | Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | ✓ 100 | ✓ 100 |
| Accessibility | ✓ 100 | ✓ 100 |
| Best practices | ✓ 100 | ✓ 100 |
| SEO | ✓ 100 | ✓ 100 |
We're developing other tools on the same foundation, and we'll write about them here as they become ready to use.
The engineering behind it
The name DutchBSD is a play on names such as OpenBSD, FreeBSD and BastilleBSD. "Dutch" refers to the Netherlands, where we're based; "BSD" reflects our background in BSD systems.
We like working with systems we can understand and maintain, but people using our products shouldn't need to know which operating system runs underneath them.
We also do engineering consultancy, particularly around infrastructure, content delivery and Linux and BSD systems.
We'll use this blog to write about our projects and the technology behind them.