--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/components/golang/patches/README	Thu Jan 21 09:20:59 2016 -0800
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+To make it easier to manage the large number of patches expected for Go at
+different points in the release cycle (due to the frequent updates by
+upstream and our own internal developmenmt), the patches in this directory
+are named as follows:
+
+XXXX-$name.patch
+
+The XXXX (matching git's 4-digit patch numbering scheme) should be a
+numeric value in the range of:
+
+0000-0499:      patches taken directly from upstream repository release
+                branch
+
+0500-0599:      patches we've contributed to upstream, but are not yet part
+                of the current release
+
+0600-0699:      patches not suitable for upstream that we need to build;
+                these should be rare
+
+0700-9999:      reserved for future use