diff --git a/meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf b/meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf
index 3e90766349..3a453ef9ed 100644
--- a/meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf
+++ b/meta-poky/conf/distro/poky.conf
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ POKY_DEFAULT_DISTRO_FEATURES = "largefile opengl ptest multiarch wayland vulkan"
 POKY_DEFAULT_EXTRA_RDEPENDS = "packagegroup-core-boot"
 POKY_DEFAULT_EXTRA_RRECOMMENDS = "kernel-module-af-packet"

-DISTRO_FEATURES ?= "${DISTRO_FEATURES_DEFAULT} ${POKY_DEFAULT_DISTRO_FEATURES}"
+DISTRO_FEATURES ??= "${DISTRO_FEATURES_DEFAULT} ${POKY_DEFAULT_DISTRO_FEATURES}"

 PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto ?= "5.19%"
 PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-yocto-rt ?= "5.19%"