Without the change patches fail to apply as `$patches` contain compressed tarball: https://hydra.nixos.org/build/300549687 applying patch /nix/store/q5k4nisc8dix97imsxlsj6m9pmkjjfcs-xloadimage_4.1-25.debian.tar.xz patch: **** patch line 1 contains NUL byte With `patch-2.8` it will become an error.