Patching other people's packages

The most important thing to keep in mind when patching packages maintained by other people is to keep the patch system (or lack thereof) that the maintainer has set up. This will ensure consistency and make the package maintainer more likely to accept your patch.

It is also a good idea to separate patches logically rather than creating one giant patch. If the upstream authors apply one of your changes but not another it is much easier to just drop a patch than edit a monolithic patch to update it.