[CLUE-Talk] The importance of saying "thanks"

[Mike Benavides]

John "Maddog" Hall ended the Ottawa kernel summit with his usual "amusing stories
but, us who use Open Source and Free software must keep this in mind who
really does the developing. Here is his quote.

"Users of free software (and we all are, in one way or another) often
have many things to say to the developers of that software. They send in
feature requests and bug reports. They ask where the next release is.
They want help making things work. They complain about vulnerability
disclosure policies. They post snide comments about the quality of the
code or the documentation.

It is relatively uncommon for free software users to simply say
"thanks."

Every line of free code is a gift from the developer (or from whoever
paid for the developer's effort). Nobody is entitled to free software;
it's a windfall, a present from those who created it. All told, it is a
gift worth, by most accounts, billions of dollars.

A little gratitude goes a long way. The next time you deal with a
developer of a package that you use, consider throwing in a brief "thank
you." The developers have earned it." John "Maddog" Hall at OLS