The importance of saying "thanks" [LWN.net]

Jon 'maddog' Hall gave a talk at the OLS reception on the first day of the conference. Those who have heard other maddog talks would certainly recognize the collection of "amusing stories from maddog's travels" theme of this one. Mr. Hall did, however, make a new and worthwhile point this time around.

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.

to post comments

The importance of saying "thanks"

Posted Jul 4, 2002 14:49 UTC (Thu) by ion++ (guest, #2433) [Link] (3 responses)

THANKS for creating the weekly edition, it's great, and it's what made your website.

"thanks" for removing the weekly edition from the frontpage. It's the weekly edition that made your website. Stop trying to be linuxDAILYnews, or linuxtoday, and concentrate on making the editorial weekly edition. The extra time you take on being linuxDAILYnews must come from one place... from the weekly edition, because i doubt you have extra people, or extra time.

"thanks" for making it _DIFFICULT_ to find the previous weeks edition. Yes i can find last weeks rather simple, but, not 2, 3 ... weeks ago. At least in the old days, one could type the data in the url that one wanted, now it's just a number with no meaning.

JonB

You're welcome...

Posted Jul 4, 2002 15:06 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm not sure this is quite the sort of thanks I was suggesting...

Some people agree with the decision to reorganize the site's content, others don't. Our feeling was that the front page needed to be a little more dynamic, so we made the change. Bookmark lwn.net/current if you would rather come in to the weekly edition.

The daily content has been a feature of lwn.net for a good four years now. It falls out naturally as part of the process of gathering and integrating information for the weekly, and really takes almost no extra time. The daily content is not detracting from the weekly content; it just lets us spread the work out over the week and make some of the results available in the mean time.

Navigation to older weekly editions is a known problem, it just didn't get fixed before deploying the new code. The new site will make it easy to set up a nice equivalent to the old "archives" page, with tables of contents available and such. Patience.

Thanks for your input.

You're welcome...

Posted Jul 7, 2002 18:43 UTC (Sun) by ion++ (guest, #2433) [Link]

Well, i'm sorry that it wasnt the kind of thanks you expected. I did start with a big THANKS for creating lwn, i really like it. Just not the new changes.

If i bookmark stuff, i forget the link, and then i can not visit it from computers that doesnt have my bookmarks, and if i loose my bookmarks, i loose the site :/

It's good to hear you are not removing focus away from the weekly edition, thats what I, and i think most people, come here for.

I dont think one should deploy the new website before such importent basic features is working. Also, i dont think it's a good idea to remove features
from a website.

Part of the reason that I was being sarcastic with the "thanks" was that i came back a month? after the change, and wanted to read the past 5 weeks editions. Which were hard to find :/ So I emailed, and there wasnt any respons.

JonB

The importance of saying "thanks"

Posted Jul 4, 2002 15:37 UTC (Thu) by utidjian (guest, #444) [Link]

I too always find fault(s) when what I have gotten used to is changed. While I am not quite used to the "new" LWN.net page I will get over it. I really liked the "old" page.

I have been a LWN.net reader for at least 4 years. It is my primary access point to everything GNU/Linux. On the main page I find handy links to slashdot.org, linuxtoday.com, and numerous other relevant sites. I almost always go to LWN.net first when I want to catch up on GNU/Linux related news... possibly because it is the shortest URL to type!

I really enjoy the weekly edition especially for the well written and level headed commentary. The LWN.net editors, in my opinion, have done and continue to do an outstanding job. I also depend on the daily updates especially for security related news. There is no other place on the web that I know of that puts out important information all in one place as quickly as LWN.net

So I just want to say "thanks" to all the people that have made LWN.net possible. I also want to thank ion++ for prompting me to donate $100 to LWN.net
For the quality of GNU/Linux related news I have gotten from this site over the years I figure I got a bargain.

-DU-...etc...

The importance of saying "thanks"

Posted Jul 4, 2002 22:21 UTC (Thu) by lordsutch (guest, #53) [Link]

If you're running Debian unstable, reportbug 1.99.44 introduced a "--kudos" option that will let you easily send a thank-you email to your favorite maintainer. You can also use packagename@packages.debian.org to send a thank-you email without reportbug installed (or if running woody, potato, slink, hamm, bo, rex..., or even another distribution).

Thanks

Posted Jul 5, 2002 22:59 UTC (Fri) by raph (guest, #326) [Link]

Here's a geniune, heartfelt thanks to the lwn crew for their fabulous work over the years, and hope they it can continue to thrive for many more years to come.

Btw, I just now got exactly such a thanks for my mod_virgule work, accompanied by a thoughtful bug report. These really are well appreciated. I try to send out these messages myself, but am not always consistent. I'll try to do better.

The importance of saying "thanks"

Posted Jul 6, 2002 3:10 UTC (Sat) by DeletedUser2457 ((unknown), #2457) [Link]

I concur with Jon.

The Linux community survives on the goodwill of many people.
Its much easier for people to criticise / nitpick than to say thanks.

As per ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar ( http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ ), most open source hackers get rewarded by non-financial means, esp with satisfaction from/amongst their peers.

Personal experience in walking down a street, mall, etc and genuinely saying thank you to someone who would appreciate it... gives both sides a good feeling.

How about trying it. A little "thank you" to those who help everyone along each day cannot be that hard heh ;o)

Cheers

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The importance of saying "thanks"

Posted Jul 7, 2002 16:23 UTC (Sun) by deanhash (guest, #2477) [Link]

I love free software and I want to thank all of the developers for thier hard work