Tyler Retzlaff wrote:
> I just want to name one more restriction that is not well known (and
> perhaps not followed anymore).  That is that patch file names were
> not reused.
> 
> That is if there are patches patch-aa, patch-ab, patch-ac and then at
> some point patch-ab is removed and a new patch is to be added it is
> not added as patch-ab it is added as patch-ad.
> 
> I was quite sternly told that this was the correct thing to do though
> I don't recall if I was ever given an explanation why, I also don't
> know if all package maintainers follow this rule.

Some patch files used to be checked in into the CVS repository using the 
-kb flag to prevent expansion of the RCS tags. Since the keyword mode 
(-kkv, -kb) is only recorded once per file, not once per revision, it 
must not be changed once it has been set.

I think this was the reason not to reuse patch names.

Roland