> > Is this a good approach?
> 
> Absolutley *not* .

I thought so :-)

> > Maybe pkgsrc has already provisions for such cases readily available?
> 
> For per-package tool support:
> 
> 	USE_GNU_TOOLS=sed grep
> 	USE_GMAKE=yes

I think that is not the point here. The system should use what has
been specified as SED, GREP, MAKE. It need not necessarily be the GNU
versions (though they would be in my case).

> 
> In more general cases: if such basic and simple utilities like cat(1) and
> echo(1) are not compatible on your system, I'd rather consider upgrading
> them, changing defs.IRIX.mk or /etc/mk.conf . Also, comments in mk/tools.mk

they are already set there, but these settings are ignored by some Makefiles.

> should be useful for you. Remember, if specific package needs GNU version of
> [whatever], place it in package Makefile. If your whole system seems
> incompatible, don't touch package's Makefile, fix it on a lower level.

it would be enough if the package Makefiles were paying attention to the
MAKE, GREP, ... settings (whether set in /etc/mk.conf or in pkgsrc/etc/*.mk).
Unfortunately many configure scripts either try to figure out the location
of these tools on their own (such as elm-me does) or simply use relative
paths, assuming that the GNU (or equivalent) ones are (the first) in the
PATH during configuration time.
This renders the whole defining process of SED, MAKE, GREP, .. whatever
somewhat pointless.

-- 
Georg Schwarz    http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
 geos@epost.de     +49 177 8811442