How to get ALSA kernel patch that fits in patches.common

Hi, I'm new to SuSE, but not to Linux, and I know how to build my own kernels. That's not the issue. I want to replace the ALSA in kernel-source-2.4.20.SuSE and build my own k_athlon.rpm. The src.rpm contains patches.common.tar.bz2 which includes an old version of ALSA. And I need a newer version to get support for the via8235 chipset, and I want to try out 0.9.4. Does anyone know how this alsa patch was created? Notice that it is not the same as the alsa-driver package. Somehow it is derived from that. But how was that done? Thanks for any hints. Kees