Hurdle to Contributing: Uploading Patches process

Problem: I'm not a hugely competent user of CVS; and there are no windows clients which make it easy (TortoiseCVS doesn't quite cut it). I'm fairly good with SVN, but only because of the GUI side of it. I've fixed something, and I want to upload a patch - I've generated it by using diff (ie, from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/diffutils.htm). Unfortunately, because it's not against a working copy; the patch is automatically rejected as invalid. This is a huge hurdle for contributing - I have to fight with CVS from the command line, guess my way through http://www.php.net/anoncvs.php ; and finally, after all of that, fail to get a working copy out which I can use to generate a patch. The error messages aren't clear either. What do you all think of: - Additional, pear specific instructions on getting a CVS checkout, aimed at windows users ("I'm afraid of the command line" types) - Very clear instructions on generating a patch from CVS - Looser restrictions on what's allowed as a patch. If CVS bits and pieces can be seen in the file, hurray, but don't make it a requirement (text/plain only plus a captcha or similar should be enough, shouldn't it?) - A bit of UI review + attention around the uploading a patch features of pearweb - it's a little rough because it's so new. -- By a factor of three, what you do is not nearly as important as how it makes people feel; so why do you spend almost all your time on the wrong thing?