Hmm.. I tried what you said, and got the following output: hostname$ ./start -m '' ------ 1999-10-22T22:15:57 PROBLEM(100) ZServer Computing default hostname ------ 1999-10-22T22:15:57 INFO(0) ZServer Medusa (V1.10) started at Fri Oct 22 16:15:5 7 1999 Hostname: hostname.byu.edu Port:8080 ------ 1999-10-22T22:15:57 INFO(0) ZServer FTP server started at Fri Oct 22 16:15:57 19 99 Authorizer:None Hostname: hostname.byu.edu Port: 8021 Traceback (innermost last): File "/usr/local/share/zope/z2.py", line 494, in ? pf = open(PID_FILE, 'w') IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/local/share/zope/var/Z2.pid'
Close, but what it actually can't assign is the socket for the monitor interface, which is not necessary to run zope. This might be a FBSD issue, or you might actually have something by chance listening on the same port (by default, 8099) that the monitor listens to. To just get it running, edit the start script to not run the monitor by specifiying the "-m ''" argument (that's dash-m with a pair of empty single quotes). You'll probably never use the monitor anyway, but this will get you started.
-Michel