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Should we have a day where we, as a community, go out of our way and thank our maintainers? (reddthat.com)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Was reading this article, and it got me thinking. There's lots of people who are happy to complain at length, but what if we made it a point to pick a particular day each year to express our collective gratitude for the work people do for FOSS?

Whether in the form of donations or kind words (maybe even joining a project), it might be something that helps keep people going on the things they love but for which they don't get a lot of appreciation.

Curious to hear y'all's thoughts.

Edit: Someone mentioned I Love Free Software Day, which is cool that it exists. I like the idea behind it, but I'm hesitant to piggyback upon a well-known holiday, for fear of being wholly overshadowed (Valentine's Day is already stressful enough for some people).

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Would be a good annual reminder that all of this has taken hard work, and a good opportunity to raise funds. I'd totally go through all my favourite projects to write a thank you somewhere

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Knowing you're appreciated with no strings attached would be a good self-esteem booster.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

and a good opportunity to raise funds.

This is what really matters I think, people should become more and more aware that yes Free software is great (I'm maintaining several open source projects myself). But all these contributors, including myself, are not or almost not funded, while many users /devs/server admins might use and depend upon your software.

If only 5% of the people who use the software in anyway would donate or sponsor these open source and free software projects, that would already be a huge win! Just know that a lot of developers are getting burned out.