What happened to latest versions of GNU Patch?

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello Karl.

I expect to have the patched and cleaned version of patch

Thanks for all your work. Did you just start working on it because you
were interested, or had problems you needed to solve, or heard from the
previous maintainer, or ... ?

It all begun on 5-Feb-2006 with this message from Claudio
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/private/gnu-prog-discuss/2006q1/001046.html

I offered myself to contact the maintainers of three packages (ed, less
and patch), or even fix myself the issues Claudio found on them (mainly
DESTDIR support) if any of them couldn't be contacted.

Eventually we contacted the maintainers of ed and less, but we had no
success contacting the patch maintainer. So, I began patching and
cleaning it.

I would like to replace it at least with `mkstemp'.
As Claudio suggests, the mkstemp gnulib module is probably the right

Another possibility is to use `tmpfile'. It is an ISO C-89 function, so
I think it is OK to use it.

Freshmeat before releasing the final (stable) version. Is this OK?

We're talking about GNU patch here? In that case, it is ok to announce
it on freshmeat, but it is more important to upload it to alpha.gnu.org
and announce it on bug-gnu-utils (I don't think patch has its own
mailing list).

Is it possible to delete files from alpha.gnu.org when they are no
longer neccesary? I normally release two or three test versions before
every stable version, and I don't like old test versions floating around
after the stable one has been released.

By the way. Just now I have found the file patch-2.5.9.tar.gz (date
1-Jun-2004) in the directory ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/ after
spending more than ten hours patching and cleaning patch-2.5.4 (the
latest stable release). :-(

In fact, I am discovering some interesting facts. I copy this from the
patch-2.5.9 Changelog (in reverse order):

1999-10-11 Christopher R. Gabriel <***@tin.it>
* configure.in (VERSION): Version 2.5.5 released.
2002-05-28 Paul Eggert <***@twinsun.com>
* NEWS, configure.ac (AC_INIT): Version 2.5.6 released.
The code already assumes C89 or better, so remove K&R stuff.
2002-05-30 Paul Eggert <***@twinsun.com>
* NEWS, configure.ac (AC_INIT): Version 2.5.7 released.
2002-06-02 Paul Eggert <***@twinsun.com>
* NEWS, configure.ac (AC_INIT): Version 2.5.8 released.
2003-05-20 Paul Eggert <***@twinsun.com>
* NEWS, configure.ac (AC_INIT): Version 2.5.9 released.

It seems I have wasted some time because no one has announced GNU patch
releases for the last seven years. See
http://directory.fsf.org/GNU/patch.html

I guess This finishes my relation with GNU patch.

Also, I see that Paul Eggert is listed by --version as an author. I
before releasing it anywhere. That will reach Paul, along with Jim
Meyering who also worked on it, I believe, and other interested parties.

OK. I send copy of this message to bug-***@gnu.org.


Best regards,
Antonio.

[Bruno Haible]

Post by Antonio Diaz Diaz
By the way. Just now I have found the file patch-2.5.9.tar.gz (date
1-Jun-2004) in the directory ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/ after
spending more than ten hours patching and cleaning patch-2.5.4 (the
latest stable release). :-(

When looking for the newest version of a GNU package, looking on alpha.gnu.org
was the preferred way ca. 10 or 5 years ago. Nowadays most GNU projects have
a publicly accessible CVS (most at savannah.gnu.org, some at sourceforge.net
or other sites); this is where you should look for newest sources. If you
don't find nothing there, take a look at the Debian packages; Debian also
maintains some packages that have no official maintainer.

But I agree with you: the relation between GNU patch and GNU diffutils is not
clear when you look at websites looking for 'patch' but don't know about the
diffutils.

Bruno