[ahaferburg]

I know what you mean, but there is bitrot. I'm currently trying dwm. Zero out of the three patches I downloaded from the website applied successfully. I'd call that bitrot.

Not sure how much I like "hand-write your own code from snippets" as a way to configure software.

[leephillips]

One advantage of the patches not working is that manually applying a patch (usually quite simple) brings you some familiarity with the code. In my case this let me make my own modifications that were not available as patches. Altering window manager code is fun!

And while you have a good point, I don’t think this is what most people have in mind when they use the term “bitrot” (but I could be wrong). I say this because dwm as supplied continues to work perfectly without modification. The patches are enhancements contributed by third parties (as far as I know) and, as you’ve discovered, are not maintained.

(Also, once you have a working, patched dwm, it should continue to work forever, even if the patches that you used may no apply automatically to future versions of the base dwm.)