[jmmv]

I spent years packaging software (mostly Gnome 2.x) for NetBSD. I almost-always tried to upstream the local patches that were needed either for build fixes or improvements (like flexibility to adapt to non-Linux file system hierarchies or using different APIs).

It was exhausting though, and an uphill battle. Most patches were ignored for months or years, with common “is this still necessary?” or “please update the patch; it doesn’t apply anymore” responses. And it was generally a lot of effort. So patches staying in their distros is… “normal”.