|  - Is there any interest in packaging scientific applications?

  Of course. This could be a selling point for NetBSD ("I can set
up an environment to run the scientific packages you need and the
packages themselves in 20 Minutes").

  Whenever _I_ need a program, I check whether it is in pkgsrc. If
not (and time allows it), I create a package for it -- for two reasons:
first, it helps _me_ keeping track of what is installed (ease of use),
second, someone else might have been looking/waiting for exactly that
package. It's not much more work for me since I try to package stuff
anyway, and it might give others a warm fuzzy feeling.

|  - Should the packager(s) be compensated in any way?
|  - If so, how should the compensation be determined or on what should
|    it be based?

  Let's put it that way: If I need a program packaged, I do it because
I need it. If you need a program packaged and can't do it yourself,
you need to find someone to do it for you.

  That someone needs an incentive. That might be "for the challenge
of it", for the fun of it or for some kind of remuneration (beer,
chocolate, hugs, postcards, valuable cash prizes).

  So my bottom line is: If you need something packetized and it is
not trivial, it's up to you how you coerce someone into doing it.
If it's worth $$$$ for you, then it's probably fair to give $ to
the packetizer. If it's to spread NetBSD boxes around because you
promote them as being particularly suited for scientific computing,
I'm sure some packetizers around are enthousiastic enough to help
you.

  But you should also be prepared to invest some work, coordinating
your effort, bringing the scientists and packetizer together,
helping when they don't understand each other, etc.

  Regards,

	mjl