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Saying Thanks – Open Source Appreciation

syndicated from planet-php.net on December 21, 2017

Wow, it has been a really long time since I’ve posted here. Most of my writing has ended up in articles of php[architect] or over on Websec.io. I wanted to jump back into the blog though and talk about something inspired by a post over on the Symfony blog about giving thanks.

Normally the Thanksgiving holiday is more associated with sharing what you’re thankful for in your life. However, the Christmas holiday comes at a perfect time to look back over the past year and think about everything you’re thankful for and how your life has changed, hopefully for the better. In the Symfony blog post they share a Composer plugin – Thanks – that makes it simple to show your appreciation to those packages you’re currently using in your applications. It sends stars to the projects (the ones you haven’t already starred naturally) as a token of appreciation. This is a great first step to showing how much you appreciate the work the maintainers have done but there’s also other ways to show that you support them and that they’re doing a great job. Here’s a few other suggestions:

  • Find their email (often in the repo’s README.md file) and send them a quick note telling them how much you enjoy using the library and how important it is to your application.
  • Write a blog post about the package and how you use it to share with others. Maintainers always enjoy seeing how their work is used and maybe even get ideas for future features and fixes.
  • Send out a Tweet about the project, telling them how much you appreciate the work they do.
  • Support them on Patreon if they have a page on there with a recurring donation. This allows them to spend more time focusing on the project and making it better for everyone.
  • Open an issue on the project’s Github/Bitbucket repository with a quick “Thanks” to everyone involved.

These are just a few ideas to get you started, of course. There’s plenty of other ways that you can support and thank the authors and maintainers of your favorite packages. Get creative and think of your own but this is the perfect time of year to do it and let those developers know their work is appreciated!