All, here is my thought about the src_prepare function in the eclass. It is commented right now, but I want to uncomment it and not force ${P} into the path in the vendor tarball if no one objects; I think it is easier to do that because it would allow me to detect when upstream vendors and the maintainer tries to provide a vendor tarball at the same time as shown in the first if block in the function. Let me know if you agree or disagree with this. Thanks, William