Re: FreBSD pkgbase vs distsets.

From: Philip Paeps <philip_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:31:24 UTC 
On 2026-02-10 08:14:34 (+0700), Lexi Winter wrote:

> hackee wrote in 
> <CRIyUTXuehXBE99lRe33_6IfZ5sZmIsIh9v1TOeBVHIXwSuoZ0522ZJUbZHSfnxcljiLFtruM-lnRY1CufB2szqP21hiGHvugZIBQxE2dzA=@proton.me>:
>> As far as I understand, FreeBSD 16 is planned to drop distsets 
>> support
>> and move entirely to pkgbase. I am writing to ask you to reconsider
>> this decision.
>
> we aren't removing support for distsets in the build infrastructure.
> we simply won't provide distsets on freebsd.org, and installing 
> FreeBSD
> via distsets will not be supported.  however, you can continue to 
> build
> distsets for your own use.
>
> this will be supported on a "best effort" basis (i.e., if it breaks,
> please send a patch) but several important downstream users including
> CHERI still depend on this, so it shouldn't break too badly.

Not to mention FreeBSD.org. ;)

I've been experimenting with pkgbase for the cluster but it'll be a good 
while before we can put everything on pkgbase.  A lot of what we do 
depends on being able to "tar -xf base.txz" somewhere.

And a lot of muscle memory.

We try to eat as much dogfood as we can though.

Philip