Just emailed the maintainers of one of my favorite little python projects (injector) to thank them. Appreciate this reminder.
Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
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Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#52I know a few open source developers that are overjoyed when their github repo gets a few stars. If you see a repo you like, star it. it'll make someone happy.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#53I know a few open source developers that are overjoyed when their github repo gets a few stars. If you see a repo you like, star it. it'll make someone happy.
Aye, it means that at least someone is using it. Even if it’s pretty niche, and just a helpful tiny application.
Was pretty happy that someone else found https://github.com/momer/solr-index-fetch useful for example :)
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure if that can be said in general. The maintainer is cited complaining about people using a +1 - which is there to notify that a bug bites me too or i agree with something someone else wrote. If the problem (which i looked not into now in detail, i just state this as general rule) is already described in excess, why should someone add more text? If even someone already sent a PR and it’s not merged because the…
I think the maintainer was referring to +1 comments, which are so annoying that they must have been one of the main reasons GitHub introduced reactions.
You’re right and given the context and previously written stuff the maintainer also invited people to contribute instead of just requiring him to work for them for free...
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#55Damn. Thank you for posting this. I can't believe what a clueless dipshit I've been all these years. The only times I recall thanking someone is when I've sent a donation and they wrote back thanking me.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#56The ted talk "What makes us feel good about our work?" illustrates this perfectly. https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good...
> Now there's good news and bad news here. The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. Ignoring gets you a whole way out there. The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and saying "Uh huh," that seems to be quite sufficient to dramatically improve people's motivations. So the good news is that adding motivation doesn't seem to be so difficult. The bad news is that eliminating motivations seems to be incredibly easy, and if we don't think about it carefully, we might overdo it. So this is all in terms of negative motivation, or eliminating negative motivation.
Which brings us to the totally free, and very low friction way to say thanks: http://saythanks.io
> SayThanks.io provides a handy URL for you to share with your open source projects— it encourages users to send a simple thank you note to you, the creator of that project.
> This simple link can be added to READMEs and project documentation.
> Then, you can enjoy a nice inbox of very small but thoughtful messages from the happy users of the software that you've toiled over. :)
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#57Gratitude has its place. Still, doesn't pay the bills. Perhaps Patreon and GitTip like solutions will prove more sustainable.
tl;dr: good idea, but not applicable to many FOSS developers due to local laws.
Please keep in mind that the legal complexity of accepting donations prevents many of us from doing so. This is largely a result of local laws and how the IRS equivalent is set up. Take Germany for instance. The tax code in Germany discourages freelancing in favor of running a >10 person company or finding steady employment. The main reason is what taxes one pays for "real employees" and how that lands in the national support system accounts. This is a valid justification on the state's part, but a FOSS developer living in Germany who isn't already doing freelancing and has all the tax complexity and insecurity taken care of is hard pressed to start accepting random donations. The first problem you'll encounter is them declaring you a false freelancer if you have a "single customer receiving bills" or forcing you to deal with freelancing tax paperwork for accepting a couple hundred bucks a month.
Still it's a good idea and I'd suggest to take out the middleman for those micropayments. I don't understand what GitTip or Patreon add in value besides acting as the payment service. I mean, you won't be able to ask for money back, will you?
Hey, if I could accept donations without concern, I might buy hardware or expensive hosting services that would benefit the project, but most FOSS developers do it as a hobby paid out of their regular paycheck.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#58Thank yous do help a lot. And they help outweigh the nasty stuff many maintainers get (harassment, death threats, rape threats, doxing, etc).
why would anyone do this to dev? I mean I can bitch about aspects of some app, but can't imagine why would anyone do any of those real question for me would be if devs prefer donation/buying the app or thank you, which one is more helpful
I've gotten all of the above. The doxing and subtle suggestion that people call me and wait for me outside my office was due to a warez project violating the license of my software to illegally package commercial software and me DMCAing their files on anonymous file hosting services (some of which properly responded). The death threats were due to my calling out a smaller closed source project stealing some of our work but stripping off the GPL text, copyright, source code, and branding. I can't recall offhand what the two rape threats were over but it was likely one of those two. The harassment is just in general and relatively constant.
Fun fact: I even get hate comments/email when I make a post on our site encouraging people to donate their organs on the anniversary of donating a kidney to my dad. Something about my dad buying me off to give him the kidney and me making tons of money from the project and stashing it overseas or something. You know, good times.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#59And sometimes a maintainer really needs to get paid. I think it would be wonderful if we could come up with better and more popular ways of "paying what you want / can". Or, even "paying if you are using this commercially".
Or in other words: saying "thank you" in a language called cash.
Re: Sometimes all a maintainer needs is a “thank you”
#60I maintain an open source app that gets about 180,000 MAU, and can confirm that I see probably a 10:1 or worse ratio of ‘your thing is broken’ emails to ‘thank you’s. The grumpy emails take a meaningful toll on me. I don’t get paid for my work, so why would I continue given that the primary output (user feedback) I get to my input (time and energy/nights and weekends) is negative? Long story short: send a thank you m…
10:1 is an amazing ratio. Either your work is of exceptional quality or your userbase / following is very positive and supportive (or both!). Either case takes skill and hard work, so my hat is off to you :)