Someone has asked me for a tool to turn a (GNU-autoconfig'urable) piece of
software into a package with as little user interaction as possible.
Having such a beast flying around, I thought I'd share it with you. It's
called url2pkg and will try to do just that. Give it an URL, and it will
prepare some basic package Makefile:

 - figure out DISTNAME, MASTER_SITES, EXTRACT_SUFX, ...
 - you'll still have to enter CATEGORY and HOMEPAGE (if available)
   in the vi(1) popping up
 - please set the MAINTAINER to something different 8-)
 - after you've exited the vi, a "make makesum" will be ran to 1. get the
   file and 2. create the distfile's checksum in files/md5
 - Next, the distfile is unpacked by a "make extract"
 - WRKSRC, GNU_CONFIGURE/USE_CONFIGURE are set as appropriate
   in the package's Makefile
 - You're left for the rest now. (creating patches to get things going and
   installed, pkg/COMMENT, pkg/DESCR, fixing pkg/PLIST, etc.).

It's not much of a killer-tool, but helps me getting started. YMMV.


 - Hubert

P.S.: Almost forgot, it's available at
      http://rfhs8012.fh-regensburg.de/~feyrer/url2pkg

-- 
Hubert Feyrer <hubert.feyrer@rz.uni-regensburg.de>