23 December 2004

Open Source Contributions

One of the major principles of Open Source software is that users are free to suggest modifications and fixes. On particular project I use pretty often is the DarwinPorts collection.

Normally I wouldn’t bother doing anything, relying on others to do the work. But Gimp v2.2 came out, I wanted it, but it wasn’t yet in the Ports. So I modified the Portfile, checked it compiled and woohoo, there was Gimp 2.2.0. Which left me in a quandry, do I keep quiet about my little hack, or do I hand out the information to everyone?

In the end, the finer principles won. I submitted it, and today my modification was committed to the DarwinPorts tree. Now everyone can enjoy that Gimpy Goodness for Christmas.

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