Is there a reason why the vendor directory is missing from the tarball on github? I'm guessing it is because GitHub is your working copy and SourceForge is your release proper.
The vendor directory was included in GitHub releases prior to 2.16.0
Was the omission of the vendor directory for 2.16.0 done on purpose?
Will the vendor directory be missing from all future GitHub releases?
I ask because 2.16.0 is currently broken on FreeBSD because it uses GitHub. Knowing the above answers will help us decide which way to proceed. I am sure this affects other packaging efforts as well.