Yes, to make openacs/dotlrn packageable on FreeBSD.org I need to get rid of daemontools (or at least make it optional).
There are some differences between linux and FreeBSD so we cannot use inittab.
The new rc.d system, a NetBSD invention, doesn't seem to support automatic respawning, so I probably need to go for a cron job. I don't think there is a way to temporarily stop such a job as easy as with daemontools. I'll look into this next week or so, but tips/examples are welcome.
BTW, a port/package is not supposed to leave files behind (like a pg_dump file) after a deinstall, but yes, a dump could be part of an interactive solution.