Just out of curiosity, why are there always multiple patches back-ported from upstream every time bash is updated. Wouldn't it be enough to just use the releases?
Sorry if this is a stupid question, was just wandering as we don't really do so with any other packages unless there are very critical bugs that need fixed.

@Jacalz, that's because how bugfix releases of bash and readline work. They don't make self-contained tarballs for minor releases - they release patchsets that need to be applied on top of major release tarball.

In D10305#169149, @aleksvor wrote:

@Jacalz, that's because how bugfix releases of bash and readline work. They don't make self-contained tarballs for minor releases - they release patchsets that need to be applied on top of major release tarball.

Thank you very much for the explanation. Makes a lot more sense now :)