On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 5:22 PM, Geoffrey Romer <gromer@google.com> wrote:

I'm responsible for maintaining the local Boost install for a large group of developers, and I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time reapplying our local patches for Boost bugs every time a new version comes out, seemingly with no end in sight.

I do understand the problem. It seems to me that this is exactly what Vendor Branches:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch07s05.html
is intended to address. We've used that tactic fairly successfully ourselves.

When a local patch is applied upstream and eventually arrives in your local repository, either the merge is trivial (because your local code is now identical to the vendor code) or you get a merge conflict, which you can resolve in favor of the new vendor code.

In every case the reporters have done everything they could to provide a useful bug report, up to and including providing patches, but have been met with profound silence.

But it's all volunteer effort. I'm impressed that Marshall responded as he did to your request.