A group of developers quarreled, but this time it was not about arguing about the best language in the world, but about whether to submit an issue of gratitude for open source projects.
Developer Vito Botta recently submitted an issue in the hairpin-proxy repo . This issue has nothing to do with technology and open source, nor is it feedback bugs or suggestions, etc. It is more like a thank you letter. Vito hopes to express concerns about hairpin-proxy through this issue. Thanks to proxy and its author.
However, this issue, which is very common in the eyes of most developers, has caused a lot of controversy. Of course, the point of contention is not to thank the matter itself, but to express gratitude (in fact, this controversy also extends When it comes to whether you should express your gratitude to others in public). Judging from the comments below this post , some developers obviously do not support expressing gratitude to open source projects by submitting an issue. They think:
- This will cause harassment to the owner/watcher of the repo. For the watcher, their watch repo is to pay attention to notifications about actual problems of the project, rather than any "thanks". For developers responsible for maintaining repo, they hope to receive e-mails about new issues should also contain practical content
- GitHub has provided mechanisms such as "star" and donations to thank open source projects, and GitHub does not fully encourage the use of issue in this form
These developers proposed options that they felt were better:
- Send thank you emails to maintainers of open source projects
- If you want to express gratitude publicly, consider doing it on public channels (such as blogs, HN and Youtube channels, etc.)
It is understandable that these developers are obsessed with the issue list. After all, the recognized correct way to open an issue is to report bugs and make suggestions and comments. If there is a lot of "noise" that has nothing to do with the project on the list, even positive voices such as thanks and encouragement , Will also affect others.
Some people mentioned the new Discussions feature of GitHub. They think that the usage scenario of Discussions matches the developer's need to express gratitude, because publishing a discussion will not be as formal as submitting an issue, but it just meets the developer's need to express gratitude in public.
In fact, in my opinion, using the "donation" function to thank open source projects is the most straightforward way. After donating, you get a great sense of satisfaction and the project maintainers get an income. This is probably double win.
Further reading: