OBS
Sometimes it is enough to adjust the .spec file – that is a small text file usually specific to us. Then it is straight-forward
And OBS will even auto-clean the branch when the submit-request is accepted. And it has a ‘tasks’ page to see and track SRs in various stages. For the spec_add_patch to work, you need to do once
ln -s /usr/lib/build/spec_add_patch /usr/local/bin/
When you want to contribute patches upstream, so that other distributions benefit from your improvements as well, then you first need to find out, where they collaborate. A good starting point is the URL field in the .spec file, but a google search for ‘contribute $PROJECT’ often is better.
github
Then there are those many projects hosted on github, where it is also pretty low effort, because I already have the account and it even remains signed in. But some repos on github are only read-only mirrors.
sourceforge
The older brother of github. They integrate various ways of contributing. The easiest one is to open a Ticket (Patch or Bug) and attach the .patch you want them to merge with a good description. While many developers do not have the time and energy to debug every bug you file, applying patches is much easier, so gets your issue fixed with a higher chance.
devel Mailinglist
Some projects collaborate mainly through their development MLs, then I need to
project bugtracker
Like https://bugzilla.gnome.org/ https://bugs.python.org/ https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/ https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/
So as you can see there is a wide range of ways. And most of them have some initial effort that you would only have once… But then I only contribute once per project, so I always pay that.
Thus, please make it easy for people to contribute one simple fix.
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