Comment # 18 on bug 984778 from Michael Andres

(In reply to Tony Mechelynck from comment #17)
> Michael: You said in comment #3 "Keep it open as an RFE". Now the bug has
> been closed becaused openSUSE 42.1 is at EOL. Do you want to REOPEN it for
> 42.3 (or for Factory) as an RFE?

Yes.

> In the meantime, adding "-t patch -t package" (or vice-versa) on the
> command-lines for "zypper lu" and "zypper up" looks to me like a
> satisfactory solution. 
>
> However, unlike "zypper patch", "zypper up -t patch
> -t package" simply skips packages for which there is a conflict, rather than
> asking the user what to do. I suppose this is intentional.

Yes. The 'pro' of 'zypper patch' is, that that you are sure the
affected/vulnerable packages mentioned in the patches are updated (otherwise
you get a conflict reporting the problem). Zypper patch meanwhile allows you to
'update' the remaining packages:

  zypper patch --with-update

  Additionally try to update all packages not covered by patches. The
  option is ignored, if the patch command must update the update stack
  first. Can not be combined with --updatestack-only.