#53978: build: allow empty .patches files
Description of Change
We've been doing more cherry picking of upstream security fixes lately, and dropping the patches once we land the corresponding upstream version. Currently this means patch directories (and their entry in patches/config.json) get removed when all patches are dropped in that directory, leading to increased merge conflict contention on patches/config.json and the patch directories.
Let's keep these empty .patches files around and their entry in patches/config.json to reduce these merge conflicts. I've had GPT grab any patch directories that have existed in the past year and restored them with an empty .patches to preempt any merge conflicts in the near future if we patch these again.
Checklist
- I have built and tested this change
- I have filled out the PR description
- I have reviewed and verified the changes
Release Notes
Notes: none
Backports
Semver Impact
Semantic Versioning helps users understand the impact of updates:
- Major (X.y.z): Breaking changes that may require code modifications
- Minor (x.Y.z): New features that maintain backward compatibility
- Patch (x.y.Z): Bug fixes that don't change the API
- None: Changes that don't affect using facing parts of Electron