HI there,
following further investigation I came to find the problem I had with both sip4-tqt and python-tqt.
Though I had managed to fix sip4-tqt with a small patch, this patch is actually NOT needed.

I have created a few scripts to help me in building the different packages of TDE, create/update 
the local repository, etc...
In one of these scripts, I setup the directories before launching the building process and to keep
my GIT folder clean I always copy the GIT source to a new folder. 
It turns out that using "-p" to preserve file attributes when "cp"-ing folders caused the building
failure in sip4-tqt, even though it hadn't caused any problem in all previous packages.
Removing "-p" allowed to:
1) build sip4-tqt without requiring any patch
2) compiling python-tqt without any problem at all, while instead using the sip4-tqt built with the
"-p" and the patch was failing.

So in summary: the patch for sip4-tqt is NOT needed. Darrell, you don't need to merge it.
Sorry for the confusion created.

Cheers
  Michele