http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17195
--- Comment #120 from Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net 2013-01-03 04:00:28 CST --- there's a way round the "requirement" that tests be run, which is to add unnecessary code that checks - at runtime - whether the old functionality is to be used or the new functionality is to be used, and to have the choice be made either as a compile-time switch or even as a configuration option.
in this way, the code gets massively complicated and it would be a hell of a lot of extra work for adam, as well as for all reviewers concerned, but the "piecemeal" patch could be applied, because each patch could be applied individually, knowing that it is going to have zero effect.
another alternative to that is to actually patch in replacement functions with alternative names, where the replacement functions are not called (at all) until the last and final patch.