>But why have the entire structure extracted on your drive, at all?
>
>Options include:
>
>1) Have the directories, README.html and Makefiles, but keep all
>other portions in a 'database' (think .tar for now if you like)
>which the Makefile knows how to extract from.
>
>2) Keep the whole thing in a 'database' and provide a tool that
>navigates it to allow the user to select packages, without having
>the entire /usr/pkg tree extracted.

(2') have cvs in the base tree.  change bsd.pkg.mk, or have a new pkg_xx tool,
to do the following:
- extract a single pkgsrc directory (for example, pkgsrc/x/y) from anoncvs
  repository, at ease
- from a single pkgsrc directory (pkgsrc/x/y), deduce depdency, and checkout
  from anoncvs repository the packages y depends upon, into pkgsrc/z/u.
we ship minimal files (pkgsrc/mk and pkgsrc/INDEX?) in pkgsrc.tar.gz.

itojun