However there is the problem on where to draw the line as to what to include, as well as the occasional licensing and export restriction problems. Although we strive to keep the quality of the packages collection high, we just do not have enough human resources to ensure the same level of robustness and security. The port collection, originally borrowed from FreeBSD , fills this gap.
Packages are the binary equivalent of ports.
Getting packages A large collection of pre-compiled packages is available for most common architectures. The 2.7 release saw the introduction of a stable branch for the ports tree. Starting with the 2.8 release, selected binary packages are also made available. Thanks to Christian Weisgerber for handling the hard work of coordinating the stable branch changes. Please refer to the stable packages page to find out about updated packages and important updates to the stable branch.