upstream Source patches and patch systems

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:02:58 +0200 fabrice <coutadeurf at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>We were having a discussion yesterday on IRC about the sense of adding a
>patch system to a package that don't have one when modifying the
>upstream source code.
>
>My understanding of the general rules is:
>- if it's a Debian package and modification has already been done, stick
>to what the Debian maintainer is already doing. That mean use the
>existing patch system, if any, or modify directly the source if the
>Debian maintainer already did some modifications, but do not add a patch
>system.
>- if it's a Debian package and no previous modifications has been done,
>modify directly the source, and do not introduce a patch system
>- if it's an Ubuntu (-0ubuntuX) package, the same rule apply, with the
>added rule that adding a patch system is preferred when no upstream
>source modifications has been done previously
>
>I just wanted to check that there is a general agreement or disagreement
>with this approach, and check that I'm not messing up new contributors :-)
>

This seems to me to be the general consensus.  Part of the rationale for 
not adding patch systems to packages from Debian is that when they are 
merged, MoM will carry the changes outside the Debian dir forward and they 
won't get lost.  For packages we don't get from Debian, this doesn't help 
and so I tend to lean more in favor of adding patch systems so that changes 
don't get lost (using a VCS for packaging can also be a solution to this 
problem).

Scott K