Comment 1 for bug 655409

The rationale behind the patches:

The stream clearing patch is to allow "reset" any specific rule for application->device map. This allows kmix to reset the stream move and make the application use the routing as defined by device manager.

The .desktop files subdir patch is needed as most kde .desktop files are in /usr/share/applications/kde4 and without this module-augment-properties cannot load nice application name/icons for display in pavucontrol, kmix and friends.

The device manager patch just fixes the first-time ordering of the sinks when used under KDE (this module is not used on GNOME). Without this, a user who has a separate HDMI device may find that this becomes his default device on first login, which is obviously not what the user would expect.

IMO all the patches are safe. I've been using them all since Mandriva 2010.1.