Patch systems in packages

[Scott Kitterman]

One thing I think this dicussion misses is consideration of how our merge 
tools work.  Think of the case of a package with inline changes fron Debian 
and an Ubuntu change also and the Debian maintainer adds the Ubuntu change 
to hs package in Debian.

If the Ubuntu change is also in line merge-o-matic will either note this 
and drop the Ubuntu diff or conflict and leave markers in the code showing 
what needs manual review.  If the change is in a patch, it will totally 
fail to be noticed and at best cause an FTBFS that would require a lot of 
work to fully detangle.

I like patch systems, but we need to be careful not to use them when we 
could shoot ourselves in the foot as a result.

Scott K