[aur-general] AUR and patches

[hollunder at gmx.at]

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:27:44 +0700
Felix <felix at 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