a package without a source tarball?

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

I've been asked to create a package when there doesn't seem to be an
easily-accessible source tarball.  All that's available -- see
http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/ -- is an SVN repository.
I've found other examples of packages based on googlecode stuff; they
generally pull in a .bz2 file.  However, the corresponding URL here
simply pulls in a compiled version for Linux.

The official way to get the source is to use svn.  In theory, I suppose
I could add a dependency for devel/subversion, and override fetch to do
that.  That strikes me as, umm, not the greatest idea...
Alternatively, I could have a pre-fetch that pulled in each individual
file (there aren't very many) via http and built a tarball, while
relying on the distinfo checksum for version control.  That would be
faster, but only slightly more aesthetic.  Any better suggestions?


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb