The attached patch, against kernel 2.4.4-pre3, adds a feature I call
"3rd-party support."

When vendors put additional kernel modules and drivers in their kernel
package, typically they do so via a patch.  For the case where totally
new file(s) are added to a kernel, this results in patch conflicts time
and again, because all these patches are updating central files: 
drivers/foo/Config.in and drivers/foo/Makefile.

The attached patch allows the addition of new kernel features without
patching.

A vendor can simply have their kernel package build process untar a
tarball inside the 3rdparty directory, or 'cp' a .c file into the
3rdparty directory.  You simply run the "mkbuild.pl" script to make the
kernel build and configuration system aware of the new kernel module,
and then rebuild with your normal kernel build process.  Additional
details are included in Documentation/3rdparty.txt, in the patch.

-- 
Jeff Garzik       | "Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a
Building 1024     |  man to fish, and a US Navy submarine will make sure
MandrakeSoft      |  he's never hungry again." -- Chris Neufeld