GIVING THANKS

We just celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US, also known as “international no email from Americans” day. Readers may or may not know this, but I am an import, having grown up in the UK and later moving to America. There are some things about America that take a long time to get used to. Thanksgiving is not one of them. It’s a wonderful tradition to also give thanks at this time of year for the things we’re grateful for, and to take a moment between scenes of gluttonous eating to think about those who are less fortunate than we are.

This year, I’m especially grateful for science and all those people who have been working to reduce the impact of this pandemic. I’m also grateful that we have the technology to stay in touch with friends and family all over the world. On a more Linux-related note, I’m thankful for all those who volunteer their time to develop an Operating System and an Open Source software community.

Many of us make our livelihoods from Linux. The world has changed a lot in the past few decades, with Linux now being big business for many corporations. And yet, there remain a great many underfunded or entirely volunteer-led projects that many of us rely on. We were reminded just recently thanks to Twitter threads that OBS (Open Broadcast Studio),

the most popular podcasting software (which I used to livestream my own pandemic wedding) is entirely funded by volunteer donations. There are so many projects like this that are worthy of our time, our money, and our considerate comments and feedback.