What are Open-Source Happiness Packets?
People are generally much more loved than we think we are. But while it's easy for many to complain when they don't like something, we're often fairly silent when things are good. Open-source communities are no different, especially when our main communication channels are textual and virtual.
However, the feeling that you made a difference, that your work matters and has value, and that the people you work with are happy to work with you, is an awesome and important feeling. With Open-Source Happiness Packets, we're trying to spread that feeling.
How does it work?
Openly expressing appreciation, gratitude, or happiness to other people can be difficult. This is especially true when you don't know them very well. Many of us come from cultures in which people are not open by default about such feelings, and naturally feel uncomfortable or even creepy to share them.
Open-Source Happiness Packets is a very simple platform to anonymously reach out to the people that you appreciate or to whom you are thankful in your open-source community. Your message can be sent anonymously if you feel uncomfortable to share your name with the recipient. Of course, we encourage you to share your name, but it's completely optional!
Happiness Archive
If both the sender and the recipient agree, we can publish the Happiness Packet on the website. With this, we're building an archive of open-source happiness that people and communities can use to draw inspiration.
As an example, here are two random messages from our archive:
Anonymous message
I appreciate the energy and your emphasis on bringing in newcomers into the Fedora Project. Sometimes it can be lonely work to follow up on different side pockets of Fedora, but you do an excellent job at not only directly helping, but also building a community of people around these pockets. I hope I get to meet you in person at Flock 2019. We're lucky to have people like you in the Fedora community!
From Samuel to Erika
Thank you for what you said about sharing your art and how it gives a whole new meaning to what we do. It is a wake-up call for me as I'm always scared to share code although I have quite a few years of experience coding and coaching other developpers. Fear of getting trashed, fear of being irrelevant because my vision of the problem was too narrow, or because I overlooked something already existing,... Fear of being misjudged, etc.
So again, thank you for your inspiring talk. It's very nice to see girls as happy and successful as you in CS careers ! You should still consider joigning Django girls or doing the same in your community ;-)