A couple of weeks ago I received a note from a person I’d never met or talked to before. He was writing just to say thanks, to tell me that some software I had written was being used and that it made his life, in a small way, better.

That totally made my day.

I usually don’t hear from people except when there’s a problem. Bug reports are probably the most common way for developers to interact with users. That’s natural and I don’t fault anybody for it. But it can wear you down, even if it’s only one complaint for every hundred downloads. But that one thank you… magic.

I think writing software—or just about any act of creation, really—is accompanied by the hope that others will find that what you’ve created is useful/beautiful/good. That’s true for commercial software, too, but I think it’s especially true for free and open source software.

So. Do you have some favorite app that you use regularly? That makes your life better or your work easier? That makes you happy? Go to the developer’s web site. Send them a thank you note. It’ll make their day.