newbie usage question

[Terrence Enger]

Greetings.

I am hacking around on the code from an open-source project.  Okay, I'll
admit it, that project is cvs itself.  Some experimentation makes me think
that I *may* eventually have something to offer back to the official
source.  How can I best prepare for that eventuality?

It will be--at best--a long time before I have anything significant to
contribute, so I suspect that a branch within the official source is not
justified.  OTOH, I am smothered in paper (with lots of markings in
different colours, whereby I track my changes), and besides that I need
experience *using* cvs.

So far as I can see, the obvious scheme is to set up my own repository,
where I can record my own work, and to treat the official source as vendor
distributions.  However, this provides no assistance for contributing
patches back to the official source. That is to say, I would checkout
official source into a separate work area, apply my changes, submit a
patch, and eventually deal with the conflicts when I update my
work-in-progress from the the official source.  Well, now that I wrote it
down in so many words, it does not look like such a big deal.  Still, I
would welcome better suggestions or confirmation that this is a reasonable
way to proceed.

On a related topic ... I tried some time ago to register for e-mail
notification of commits to the official repository, and I was never
successful:  The web page told me that my request was accepted, but I never
received notification, not once!  Again, I welcome your suggestions.

Thank you, all, for your attention.

Terry.
Available for contract programming.