Editing Portal:FreeBSD,OpenBSD,etc (section)

=== OpenBSD: Perl in the base system ===

'''OpenBSD''' is the major modern BSD that most clearly continues the older Unix tradition of shipping Perl as part of the base system. OpenBSD 7.8, released October 22, 2025, lists '''Perl 5.40.1 (+ patches)''' among the major outside components included in the system.<ref>OpenBSD Project, “OpenBSD 7.8,” https://www.openbsd.org/78.html, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref>

This is a sharp contrast with FreeBSD. FreeBSD decided that Perl should be managed outside the base system. OpenBSD continues to treat Perl as useful enough, stable enough, and integrated enough to remain part of the default operating system.

The OpenBSD manual page set includes `perl(1)` and the normal Perl documentation pages, and OpenBSD also has a `perlopenbsd(1)` page describing Perl version 5 on OpenBSD systems.<ref>OpenBSD Project, “perl(1),” https://man.openbsd.org/perl.1, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref><ref>Perl Documentation, “perlopenbsd - Perl version 5 on OpenBSD systems,” https://perldoc.perl.org/perlopenbsd, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref>

OpenBSD’s decision to keep Perl in base is not merely sentimental. Some OpenBSD infrastructure is written in Perl or has historically depended on Perl. Most notably, OpenBSD’s package tools and package-library code have a strong Perl history.