Write a recipe and submit :) I don't think there was ever a "conscious
decision" to not support a specific package for non-technical reasons.
And this one doesn't also look like it has any noteworthy implications -
its autotoolized and GPLv2. So a good one to get involved for sure.

Thanks! It sounds like I am not stepping into an historical tarpit then. There
are so many references to patchutils in the Yocto ecosystem that I figured
there just had to be some reason for the non-existence of a recipe.

Indeed such a recipe looks fairly simple. I will check the appropriate layer
README for patch submission details.


The only thing that *could* theoretically happen, is that if no usecase
other than a very specific one of yours can be seen, that you are asked
to keep it in a layer of your own instead of being accepted into
meta-openembedded (because thats where it would have to go).

Well, while I have your mind on that topic... I spent a great deal of time 
building a self hosting/building yocto environment. I started with an 
Ubuntu install, built an image that met all of our internal development
needs, and then discarded the Ubuntu install. This development image
inherits from the image that builds the embedded OS we deliver as a
product.

Our developers now work from our Yocto built environment to do their
development. Updates are built within that image and all developers
move on to the next one as needed. This approach ensures that application
development done for our embedded OS is guaranteed to be consistent.
Over the last few years it has resulted in a lot of tangible benefits.

There are many more details, of course (Virtual machines are used, etc),
but that should set the stage.

As we embark on our next version, it occurs to me that Richard Purdie's
excellent combo-layer tool is a better way of managing all of the upstream
repos. As I was experimenting with it, I found that patchutils is nowhere
to be found in the yocto ecosystem.

So... is "building a self-hosting" environment a decent use case? I think
as it becomes easier to do this, it will become de rigeur to work from an
environment like that.

And sorry in advance if I opened any cans of worms :)


Thanks,

..Ch:W..