Managing changes to the XSLT stylesheets

[Geraint North <geraint@transitive.com>]

It seems to me that there are two ways to manage changes to the XSLT  
stylesheets:

1. Modifying the parameters/templates in-place.
2. Adding a customisation layer, duplicating (and thus overriding)  
the parameters and templates that you specialise.

Initially, I went for the former approach, which was recommended in  
"DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide", however, having just moved my  
changes up from Docbook XSLT 1.68 to 1.73, I've switched to an  
approach where I just modify the parameters and template in-place.   
This means that when I update to future versions of the XSLT, I can  
apply the diffs and resolve conflicts as appropriate - as it stood,  
I'd modified cloned copies of templates that had changed  
significantly in the update, and that wasn't caught until I manually  
went back to look at the 'new' original templates.

However, this means that if I wanted to distribute any of my changes,  
I'd be distributing them as a patch, rather than as a single file  
that overrode the relevant templates - is this something that people  
generally do?

Thinking of it, is there a page anywhere where people can distribute  
their enhancements to the stylesheets?

Thanks,

Geraint North
Principal Engineer
Transitive