hmm... I'm not quite sure how to attach a file to a ticket through the web interface,

In general, upload to ftp.openldap.org according to contribution instructions, and post a message with the URL; the way you provided it makes it pretty unusable.

However, I think your patch will not be considered, although in principle perfectly acceptable, because an API change of this type would probably break a lot of code out there, without significant advantages.

p.