Very true, my friend. But, they have highly experienced end users like you there that can and do offer valuable help on a daily basis. :)
Daemonforums is an invaluable resource. I'm glad that you're posting here as well.

That is very true, but I never said that it was, I suggested that support is available there - like here where people get support for Linux. :)

This is an entirely false statement.

edit: btw, daemonforums are quite OpenBSD-centric, which is logical as FreeBSD has their own forums and NetBSD is too much of a niche.

The BSDs do use GNU software - they only compile & include the base O/S utilities in their basic offerings.

Most of the base operating system in "the BSDs" comes from "the BSDs". The rare cases where GNU utilities are used (like GCC) are sometimes replaced by better alternatives (e.g. FreeBSD uses Clang instead). There is no "GNU/somethingBSD" anymore, for very good reasons. (Debian's "GNU/kFreeBSD" can be considered dead as far as I'm aware.)

Linux distributions also package software released under permissive BSD, MIT, ISC, etc, etc licences...

It's not so rare. The OpenBSD Project, for example, states:
As an example of long-term transition, clang is in base and is used in in the build toolchain, however gcc is still a requirement for building the OS on some architectures. OpenBSD is not cross-compiled.*

* Except in the first phase of porting to a new hardware architecture.

Doesn't want to create another topic here. But, I'm also looking to switch to BSD (key reason - hates systemd). FreeBSD with latest Gnome 3.x will that work? Firefox Quantum, java plugin, multimedia - how much luck?

Not sure gnome 3 is available for FreeBSD - might be, but haven't used FreeBSD as a desktop in a couple of years and when I did I used DWM or FLuxbox. Gnome 3 has heavy systemd deps so not sure it would work. This is just a guess though so do your research.

Never had issues with firefox or multimedia on FreeBSD, everything there was fine. My issues were with my video hardware: xorg on FreeBSD was very unhappy with my hardware and I had to give up and go back to Linux. My scanner was a nightmare as well but I eventually got it to work. If everything worked perfectly, I would be running it right now.

Part of what you might encounter are little things that just work in Linux but require more (or a lot) of work in BSD. These are intended to be server OS's so your mileage may vary.

Yup: https://www.freebsd.org/gnome/

FreeBSD regularly imports Linux drivers (or writes their own ones for proprietary drivers, like ath10k).

Most Linux distributions are harder to administer than FreeBSD. NetBSD is a different beast though.

Saw the gnome 3 info after I posted - hate gnome 3 so not going to use that but OP asked.

It wasn't a driver issue: my display would go into dpms when I dropped out of X and it was unrecoverable. Could not fix no matter what I did. No one on forums could figure out either. Only change is new (certified) DP cable so may re try BSD again. Linux did the same thing on some distros and since new cable this has not repeated.

Admin'ing FreeBSD is very easy, I agree. It's just the set up for desktop use. I may re try BSD - hate to because my current Linux set up is flawless, with the exception of having had to drink the systemd koolaide...

I am still trying to move away my FreeBSD computers to OpenBSD (desktop) or (Open)Solaris (server)...

Never tried OpenBSD, only FreeBSD. I have specific software (ports) requirements so would need to compare the two. I've got the FreeBSD install down to 7 minutes so it's not like it takes very long, lol. Getting everything set up to work is what takes me a lot of time: printer, scanner, Nvidia driver, etc.

Might give it a shot this weekend - supposed to rain so nothing else to do :)

The OpenBSD installation process is awesome. :)

You won't like OpenBSD with that hardware. NVIDIA graphics chipsets can only be used in VESA mode on OpenBSD. NVIDIA interfaces and documentation are closed/proprietary, and the OpenBSD Project members will neither sign an NDA nor publish a closed-source module. ("Open" is right there in the name.)

On the plus side, Gnome3 is an extremely simple and easy installation on OpenBSD, as long as the workstation has a video chipset with supported 3D hardware acceleration (Intel / Radeon).