=== FreeBSD Erlang Ecosystem Ports update

Links: +
link:https://wiki.freebsd.org/Erlang[FreeBSD Erlang wiki] URL: link:https://wiki.freebsd.org/Erlang[https://wiki.freebsd.org/Erlang] +
link:https://erlang.org/[Erlang/OTP language] URL: link:https://erlang.org/[https://erlang.org/] +
link:https://elixir-lang.org/[Elixir language] URL: link:https://elixir-lang.org/[https://elixir-lang.org/] +
link:https://gleam.run/[Gleam language] URL: link:https://gleam.run/[https://gleam.run/] +

Contact: FreeBSD Erlang mailing list <erlang@FreeBSD.org>

The Erlang runtime system, commonly known as the BEAM, provides a runtime that is used by a number of programming languages and applications in the FreeBSD ports collection.

Notable changes in 2021 include:

* adding OTP24, including support on amd64 architecture for JIT compilation, and dropping the previous NATIVE and HIPE options
* security fixes for the `devel/rebar3` build tool
* adding a new language runtime for link:https://gleam.run/[Gleam language]
* more than 40 point release updates in the last quarter alone for the Erlang runtimes

As the upstream Erlang OTP team have committed to supporting the 2 current releases, more and more point updates are arriving for OTP22-24, but not  for the older Erlang runtime releases, which are now unlikely to get security and bug fixes.

The Erlang team is planning to:

* deprecate in 2021Q3 any ports that are not compatible with OTP releases in the last 2 years
* remove the deprecated runtimes in 2021Q4
* remove ports directly dependent on erlang- and elixir- languages, where they are more commonly installed via `mix` and `rebar3` tools, the standard community build tool chain.
* update RabbitMQ to the next major release, which requires OTP23 minimum, and introduces support for the JIT
* bump the main `lang/erlang` runtime to OTP24 because JIT is awesome

Additional testing and community contributions are welcomed, please reach out on the mailing list, especially if you are able to help testing of specific port updates.