Excerpts from internet.computing.netbsd.current-users: 13-Aug-96 q about
package utilities by VaX#n8@linkdead.paranoia 
> I saw FreeBSD had some interesting mechanisms for grabbing source code,
> applying patches and/or scripts, and then compiling, etc....
> Is anyone working on a similar system here?

    I got the FreeBSD ports system working just fine on my NetBSD
1.2_BETA i386 with relatively little work. The Makefiles that do the
work are located in /usr/share/mk/{bsd.port.mk,bsd.port.subdir.mk}, so
you can FTP to any site with a FreeBSD source tree and find these files.
 I had to modify the section where it does the fetch, my ncftp doesn't
seem to take the arguments the FreeBSD ports makefiles give it.  You'll
need ncftp, obviously.
    Then you'll need usr.sbin/md5, a library it requires (lib/libmd). 
And I had to compile FreeBSD's usr.sbin/pkg_install, which requires
lib/libftpio.  Once you've done this, it should work just like it does
under FreeBSD.

    In my case, I have /usr/src set up as a pair of union mounts so that
the NetBSD sup tree is in /usr/local/src and my changes to it are in
/usr/local/localsrc.  That way sup can update its files, and a simple
script can update my files if the NetBSD version of them change.  But I
rigged sup to grab the FreeBSD ports files as well, so that I can use
most of their ports (some will require additional patches for NetBSD,
but that's pretty easy to do).

    So, if you want to take a look at my modified bsd.port.mk file, just
ask.  The fix to get it to work under NetBSD was rather simple, though. 
Once the above listed programs are compiled and installed on your
system, you shouldn't have any troubles getting ports to work.

    Good luck!

                                                          Will Ferry

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