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.