Okay, I must be having an off day today, I need to amend my comments
above. First, it was three to four years ago that I experienced the
problem. Second, I meant to say "tnftp's autoconf script has a
check..." Third, I don't know for sure if pkg_install actually needs
curses, or whether the check that's included in its autoconf script is
simply vestigial. The bootstrap error I originally reported pertained
to tnftp (originally its configure script didn't warn about not finding
curses either). I submitted the PR with the fix for pkg_install under
the assumption its existing check (silent in the case of failure) was
indeed relevant.
Regards,
Dave