One of the reasons why I love open source software is that I can maintain personal patches. I'll upstream changes when it makes sense to do so, but mostly, I keep local branches.
Some of these tweaks are simple. Others are significant rewrites. But, the point is that I can approach computing on my own terms, and that's pretty neat.
I really appreciate how easy Nix makes this. It’s relatively straightforward to overlay a package in your configuration to add a patch - meaning I get to apply my own patches and also get updates from upstream - at least until my patch doesn’t apply cleanly.
That sounds interesting, do you have an example somewhere? I hadn't really considered this nix specific - does it make it easier than git normally allows (by keeping your patch in a branch?)
If you keep a patch in a branch, then you have to keep merging the upstream and your commit hashes become different from what everyone else sees, for example.
Some of these tweaks are simple. Others are significant rewrites. But, the point is that I can approach computing on my own terms, and that's pretty neat.