Being a contributor in the open source world is a no brainer : - you fork - you edit / change / improve - you send a pull request - done. When contributing to

Being a contributor in the open source world is a no brainer : - you fork - you edit / change / improve - you send a pull request - done. When contributing to small projects (with presumably smaller teams or solo dev), I think exchanging a few emails with the dev is a nice way to get how they envision thing and make sure your thoughts go along theirs. I lead a few modest projects and I really prefer discussing options first, rather than having to decline a patch that came out of the blue for whatever reason.