David Brownlee wrote:

>         How about 'nb<n>' which evaluates as .0.<n> in the deweydecimal,
>         so we get
> 
>                 1.1 < 1.1nb3 < 1.1.1
> 
>         What do people think?

  Sounds good, but why not have any non-numeric followed immediately by
a number evaluate to .0.<n>?  This way we wouldn't have to immediately
change a whole bunch of packages.  Also, versions like 1.1a1, 1.1b1, and
1.1p1 usually indicate completely different things (such as 'alpha',
'beta', or 'patchlevel') which may not even be netbsd-specific but
rather have been introduced by the original author.  Changing all these
to 'nb' would cause us to lose some information.

  As for NetBSD-specific changes: yes, I believe changing things like
'1.1abs1', '1.1rh1' to something common like 'nb' would be a good thing
...

  Cheers
      ,
   Rene