Packaging the FreeBSD base system with pkg(8)

As many know, work has been in progress for quite some time to provide
the ability to package and upgrade the FreeBSD base system using pkg(8).
The majority of the initial implementation has provided much of the core
functionality to make this possible, however much work still needs to be
done.

Over the past few weeks, there have been several inquiries on if this
work is still targeted for the 11.0-RELEASE, as well as the status of
the project branch (base/projects/release-pkg).

The answer to the first question is: Yes.  This is still targeted for
11.0-RELEASE, which was one of the requirements during discussion of the
new support model announced early last year [1].

The status of the in progress work is a bit more complex to answer in
a short email, but work on packaging the FreeBSD base system is indeed
ongoing, and has been my primary focus over the past several weeks.

I am finishing an initial list of outstanding items that need to be
resolved before the project branch can feasibly merged back to head,
which I will send to the new freebsd-pkgbase_at_ mailing list.  People
interested in discussion surrounding this topic are urged to subscribe:

    https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-pkgbase

Finally, I want to personally thank Baptiste Daroussin for all of his
tireless efforts to get us to the point we are at now.  Without his
ideas and insights, as well as ensuring pkg(8) contained the necessary
functionality, we would not be anywhere close to completing this work
for the 11.0-RELEASE.

[1]
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-announce/2015-February/001624.html

Thanks.

Glen