On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:27:44 +0700 Felix <felix@seconddrawer.com.au> wrote:
Hi all,
what is the policy or recommendation for applying patches to upstream sources?
For a standard package that is listed as such (ie. not a patched version) then I assume the only patches applied are those to make it compile and install. If I were to add some patches that enhanced the functionality then I would create a new package in AUR that stated that. Does that sound reasonable?
-felix
I'm no authority on that, but personally I pretty much handle it like that. Most patches I write are gcc or DESTDIR related and I submit them to upstream, if possible. I had one case where a user requested that I add patches and he supplied me with the patches and information about the bugs that those patches fix. It looked reasonable so I added them as well as another functionality enhancing patch I knew of (http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22752). Now the next version of this software is released and half of the patches aren't needed anymore, so I simply remove them. In my opinion it's easier to remove patches than to add them, so in a case like this one I'll provide information about the patches in the form of comments. The user can then decide if he wants them, removal is trivial. Regards, Philipp