On Fri, 24 Apr 1998 17:21:49 -0500,
"Michael G. Schabert" <mikeride@prez.buf.servtech.com> wrote:
> 
> While that is helpful for one single package, it doesn't answer the
> question asked. He's wondering if there's something like an abstracts page
> for the packages. It's a bit daunting to open into the package (all)
> directory & see all of these alphabet soups which we may or may not have
> happened to have heard of before. A quick summary of contents would be
> helpful.

Ah, OK, then.

Instead of ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/1.3/m68k/All, you
should grab pub/NetBSD-current/tar_files/pkgsrc.tar.gz, untar it, and 
there will be a pkg/DESCR file under each package's directory.  It
contains short description of the package.

This may not be what you or he wants, but I believe is the closest.
You can of course do for instance:

pkg_info ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/1.3/m68k/All/kdebase.tgz

but it will actually download the package so takes time. I wouldn't
want to do that for the XEmacs 20.3 package...

Ken