In 2008 there was no reliable Windows tool to apply patches,

and there was no cross-platform solution that could be safely

run by web server process.

(UNIX *patch* utility)[http://www.gnu.org/software/patch/] was

(ported to windows)[http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/patch.htm],

but there were (a couple of bugs)

[http://www.google.com/search?q=Assertion+failed%3A+hunk%2C+file+patch.c]

that proved that it can not be run securely in web server process.

The utility was also hard to tweak without a C compiler, it messed

badly with LF and CRLF line end differences, and so this project

was born.

*patch.py* was meant to be a cross-platoform tool with intuitive

defaults, taking care of the most problems (e.g. line end

differences) automatically.