&gt;&gt; Things like apache, mysql, etc etc etc.<p>That&#x27;s well beyond the remit of the OS developers who are only responsible for FreeBSD, but the ports team has happily provided us with `pkg lock` to prevent edits to ports once they are installed.<p>&gt;&gt; my understanding is the ports system only supports the lastest version of FreeBSD<p>I believe the the ports tree will be compiled for a given branch until the underlying branch is EOL. FreeBSD 8, for example, had binary packages built from 2009(?) until the branch was EOL&#x27;d last year. That&#x27;s six years of support for 3rd party software, after which you can maintain&#x2F;build your own pkg repository.<p>I understand the desire for longer environment lifecycles in FreeBSD (I hate the continuous upgrade cycle myself), but without a company stepping up and providing long term commercial support, I&#x27;m not seeing how a volunteer project as small as FreeBSD can do more for longer.