As soon as I had completed some mods to the MetaDot portal software we are using, I communicated those changes back to the original author. He thanked me and I felt like I had contributed something meaningful.

Within hours, my boss came to me with another, but much more complicated modification. He successfully convinced me that it was imperative that MetaDot support multi-level delegated administration. The current version of MetaDot enables two types of users: normal and site administrator. I emailed the MetaDot team with this new requirement as I was about to leave work yesterday.

This morning when I arrived at work, an email from MetaDot was waiting. They enthusiastically supported the concept and provided me guidlines for implementing the changes in a manner compatible with their future plans. What more could we ask for? Because we have the source code, I can implement features that my organization requires and roll them up to the owner for review and inclusion in future versions. It's a win-win-win!