Pkgsrc is a package management system that allows software to be built and installed across many platforms. It supports over 10,000 packages and 19 platforms. Notable changes in 2012 include PostgreSQL 9.1 being imported, emulators for NetBSD 6, newer versions of languages like Python 2.7 and Ruby 1.9.3, and Apache 2.4 being imported. The summary discusses challenges around lack of support, packages without maintainers, and communicating with upstream projects.