Pat's $0.02 for patch-2.3:

This version of patch has MAJOR, MAJOR problems, and as a result I don't
intend to upgrade to v2.3.  (For example, if you've got a chunk of text 
containing more than one patch, it'll apply the first hunk and then exit!
That breaks a very large percentage of patches out there!)

...hopefully the next version will work better. :^)

Pat's $0.02 for patch-2.5:

...doesn't seem to.  The first test I made using a patch from the net had
patch-2.5 asking me what file I was trying to patch.  patch-2.1b works fine
in the same situation, happily patching with no questions asked.

Anyway, I've removed patch-2.3.tar.gz from this directory and added
patch-2.5.tar.gz (for those who must shoot themselves in the foot, IMHO).

Slackware will continue to use patch-2.1b for the forseeable future, unless
the patch maintainer decides to come up with some new incompatible patch format
to force the new version into use.  I sure hope that doesn't happen, at least 
not without fixing the problems handling older patches.