The best way to share your bug fixes/improvements to existing software is by submiting patches. This is quite simple to do, however, especially when making a patch from a software using autoconf/automake/libtools, one should take care not including generated files in the patch.

The method I use is:

• extract the original package in a 'package-0.XX.0-orig' directory
• keep your modified package in a 'package-0.XX.0' at the same level
• for package using 'autotools', issue a 'make maintainder-clean' at the top level of both packages.
• to actually make the patch, use the following command:

diff -urNa -x “cscope*” -x “configure” -x “Makefile.in” ./package-0.XX.0-orig ./package-0.XX.0 >mywonderful.patch