generating a patch

[DCT Jared]

>Well, I've done it. I've downloaded the source and made my first set of
>modifications to an open source product and now the maintainer would
>like me to submit a patch back to him. Question is: how do I do that? :)

There are numerous ways. Does the maintainer have CVS or some
publically stated way of receiving patches? The default is what
Linus Torvalds does; receive it via email. It all depends on how much
code you have modified, and what the maintainer is used to. If it is
a sourceforge project, sourceforge has a whole patch/CVS system
available for the project already.

>Also, if you were maintaining an OSS project, would you be insulted if
>someone submitted a patch that fixed problems but also reformatted all
>the code to make it more readable? (I removed a ton of perlisms and
>replaced them with English.)

Yes. Remember, he's the maintainer for the code--no fun becoming 
a stranger to your own code. Fork the project if you're going to go 
that far.

At minimum, ask the author for permission. He might be open 
to the idea, knowing that his code is hard to read, or 
he might be intending it on purpose for some unknown reason.
i.e. I personally don't like people "fixing" my own code before it is 
finished. Once it's finished, I'm all about taking advice.

I remember a geek questionnaire a while back, one of the
questions was "Have you copyedited your boss's writing?"

Apparently some folks think it's geeky to do so. :-)

-Jared