On Sep 7, 2011, at 9:57 AM, Always Learning centos@u61.u22.net wrote:
Perhaps a silly question, but why maintain patches ? Why not compile a new version and discard all the patches ? Patches are a messy manner to maintain programmes.
RHEL needs to keep the same ABI (application binary interface) for both kernel and user programs so third party VARs and software developer's binary packages will continue to be compatible during the lifetime of a release (5.X or 6.X).
In order to do that RH keeps (or makes all attempts to) the same versions of the software during the release while back porting security updates and must-have features that don't change these ABIs.
These back ported updates are the patches that are applied to the base package.
That should make it crystal clear.
-Ross