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
Open source conferences and events always surprise me because I usually end up having a conversation with someone about something *totally* random, but is so enjoyable. I appreciate all of the wisdom, personal experience, and helpful pointers you willingly and gladly shared with me. When you're doing things on your own for fun, it's easy to get stuck somewhere and spin wheels for a while. Your feedback and our conversation helped motivate me to keep the course and continue to learn and experiment.
I appreciated the opportunity to get a better idea of the person whose name appears in my inbox every day, other than the exciting numbers you share. People like you make me happy to be involved in open source. Thank you.
From Justin W. Flory to Sabrina Campos
Hi Sabrina! I am saying thanks for your work on the qAIRa documentation site: https://github.com/qAIRa/qAIRa.github.io
It is a great example and I have pointed several other UNICEF Innovation Fund teams to qAIRa documentation. It inspired other teams to build a docs site modeled after yours. Keep up the great work!