Have you ever wanted to contribute a package to Pear but were unsure where to start? Well, thanks to PHP Magazine you can now learn from my experience contributing my own first Pear package in this practical, informative online article. Formerly published as the cover story in the print edition (at a price of nearly ten euros per issue), the entire article is now available online for free. Thanks again to PHP Magazine for supporting the PHP/Pear community in this way.

The article covers the creation of his package, Net_Monitor, including the code for this small utility to test for server availibility. He goes through the creation, submission, feedback, and votign stages in detail before finally getting approved and uploading his packages for the world to use...