Steps to create a Pull Request

Create a JIRA issue here https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT (e.g., OODT-xxx where xxx is the issue ID)
Sign up and login to Github
Fork the Apache OODT repository (https://github.com/apache/oodt / https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo/)
Clone your repository(eg git clone git@github.com:myuser/oodt.git)
Edit files
git commit -a m "OODT-xxx my fix for issue xyz"
git push
Then go back to github and create a pull request(https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests/)

Steps to create a patch file

Create a JIRA issue here https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT (e.g., OODT-xxx where xxx is the issue ID)
Check out source code (e.g., git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/oodt.git)
Edit files (e.g., src/main/bin/url-downloader)
git status (make sure it shows things have changed)
git commit -a -m "OODTxxx my commit to fix xyz"
git show HEAD > OODT-xxx.yourname.yyMMdd.patch (e.g., yyMMdd is the date)
Attach your patch file obtained from step #4 to issue at step #0 (e.g., https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OODT-756)