Dr J A Gow wrote:
How to capture these 'lost' contributions is a difficult issue. Maybe a centralized repository for patches could be maintained separate from the main Wine tree and with a very loose method of acceptance (maybe just ensure that it is clearly indicated what the patch is for and what version it can be applied to). This way it would be very easy for a contributor to place a patch somewhere where it is easily accessed by the community. A developer with more time who is interested in it may pick it up and clean it up for inclusion in the tree, but at least the patch is available for others to use, saving re-invention of the wheel.
Why reinvent the wheel? If such people can spend their time chasing down the problem and developing a fix for it, they sure can open a bug in bugzilla, describe theproblem and attach a patch they made. How more simple can it be?
No patches lost, no extra places to look for. And all the information describing the problem. Everything in one place.
Vitaliy