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:
From Ernest Micklei to Jack Christensen
Dear Jack,
Thank you for creating the pgx package.
We at bol.com have been using it in production since December 2015 for our message queueing system called BoQS. Currently, it transports about 25 million messages a day and we expect to see it grow at least 10x.
If you want to know more then just ask.
Thanks
Anonymous message
I read your story on the Fedora Magazine about Linux Weekend 2017! It's so amazing that you're so new into open source and Linux, but you're already sharing what you know with others who are completely new. What you're doing is so awesome and I can't wait to hear about other things you continue to do! We're lucky to have people like you in open source, keep up the awesome work!