Thanks for the help Jeremy. Much appreciated.

>In that download directory there is a file called pkg_summary.gz. It can 
>be used to know the names of the packages needed and they can be 
>downloaded without using possibly broken pkg_add.

There's a .pkgcache which I've had a look through. The first package to
fail was qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1. There's no entry in .pkgcache like it. No
qt3-l* in fact.

>Also, some packages are missing, probably due to licensing issues or 
>security vulnerabilities.
>
>If you notice that some package available has a dependency missing due to 
>licensing issue, let us know.

The qt3 problem seems to be due to licensing issues. In the
qt2-designer-2.3.1nb6.tgz section there's a 'CONFIGURE_ARGS=' line
which ends with:

/usr/pkgsrc/x11/qt2-designer/../../x11/qt2-libs/files/license-acceptance

Same for qt2-docs-2.3.1nb6.tgz and qt2-examples-2.3.1nb6.tgz

However, for qt3-3.3.6.tgz the line ends with:
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups

And for qt3-docs-3.3.6nb1.tgz ends with:
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -I/usr/pkg/qt3/include
-L/usr/pkg/qt3/lib  -I/usr/pkg/include/mysql  -L/usr/pkg/lib/mysql

Similar for qt3-psql-3.3.6.tgz
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -I/usr/pkg/qt3/include
-I/usr/pkg/include/postgresql/server  -L/usr/pkg/qt3/lib

qt3-tools-3.3.6nb1.tgz
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -I/usr/pkg/qt3/include
-L/usr/pkg/qt3/lib

qt4-4.1.3.tgz
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -no-sql-sqlite

qt4-docs-4.1.3nb1.tgz
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -no-sql-sqlite
-I/usr/pkg/qt4/include -I/usr/pkg/include/postgresql/server
-L/usr/pkg/qt4/lib

qt4-psql-4.1.3.tgz
license-acceptance -no-g++-exceptions -no-cups -no-sql-sqlite
-I/usr/pkg/qt4/include -L/usr/pkg/qt4/lib

So it looks like the problem could be the same for qt4.

It's strange because the licensing issues "became a moot point with
the release of Qt 2.2." according to this article:
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/books/kde-2.0-development/ch19lev1sec2.html#ch19lev2sec5

Only four sections mention qt3-libs (on the 'CONFIGURE_ARGS' line),
namely: qt3-docs-3.3.6nb1.tgz, qt3-mysql-3.3.6nb1.tgz, qt3-psql-3.3.6.tgz
and qt3-tools-3.3.6nb1.tgz.

But there are 84 entries which name libqt-mt.so.3 as a requirement
(mostly beginning with k), but there's no entry for libqt-mt.so.3*
so I tried to pkg_add one of those; namely 'MyPasswordSafe'. It failed,
but it didn't get in a loop like 'pkg_add kde' seemed to. The errors were
the familiar:

Package `MyPasswordSafe-20060326' depends on `qt3-libs>=3.3.6nb1'.
Loading it from qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1.
PKG_PATH = ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
parsing: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
path: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
increasing RLIMIT_NOFILE to max. 1772 open files
trying PKG_PATH ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
Reusing FDs 4/5 for communication to FTP coprocess

ftp> nlist qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1 /var/tmp/pkg.00941a
pkg_add: nlist failed!
Reusing FDs 4/5 for communication to FTP coprocess

ftp> nlist qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1.tbz /var/tmp/pkg.00941b
pkg_add: nlist failed!
Reusing FDs 4/5 for communication to FTP coprocess

ftp> nlist qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1.tgz /var/tmp/pkg.00941c
pkg_add: nlist failed!
Reusing FDs 4/5 for communication to FTP coprocess

ftp> nlist qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1-*.t[bg]z /var/tmp/pkg.00941d
pkg_add: nlist failed!
pkg_add: no pkg found for 'qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1', sorry.
pkg_add: 1 package addition failed
pkg_add: autoload of dependency `qt3-libs-3.3.6nb1' failed!
Loading it from qt3-libs>=3.3.6nb1.
PKG_PATH = ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
parsing: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
path: ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
increasing RLIMIT_NOFILE to max. 1772 open files
trying PKG_PATH ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/3.0/i386/All
Reusing FDs 4/5 for communication to FTP coprocess

ftp> nlist qt3-libs*.t[bg]z /var/tmp/pkg.00426a
pkg_add: nlist failed!
pkg_add: no pkg found for 'qt3-libs>=3.3.6nb1', sorry.
pkg_add: 1 package addition failed
pkg_add: autoload of dependency `qt3-libs>=3.3.6nb1' failed!
<--- snip --->
ftp> close
pkg_add: 1 package addition failed

I've downloaded everything in packages/kde and everything beginning
with qt3- which I'll put on my own (lan) ftp server, so I can set
PKG_PATH to that and watch what happens when I pkg_add kde again.

It *is* fun :)
Sorry for the long post.

-- 
John.