>${PREFIX/etc camp.  _If_ /etc is the final decision, the question of
>rc.d type files still comes up - would it be acceptable to have both
>configuration files in /etc and startup files in ${PREFIX}/etc/rc.d ?

I should certainly hope so.  The start/stop files themselves
_should_ be shareable (I always write them with that in mind) 
and so locating them in a potentially shared directory makes 
sense - assuming that you then have a symlink to
somewhere under /etc to trigger auto start/stop at boot/shutdown.

I missed whatever discussion may have occured that made start/stop scripts
a more likely event, so I'm making the possibly rash assumption
that NetBSD is not planning to do them in some totally new way?
Ie. the conventional approach is a dir where you store the actual
start/stop script, but they are linked into the rc*.d directories
to cause automagic processing.  This allows said magic to be
enabled/dissabled at will without removing it from the system.
It also means that you don't need to know which rc*.d dir contains
the link for boot time magic you know that /etc/init.d/foo will
be there (using the sysV names but that's not important).

--sjg