People that do because they do
Last night I walked down the street with my family to view a train exhibit that had been put up year after year for over 30 years by a local train enthusiast in an effort to share his Christmas with neighbors, adults, and children alike. Two nights before that I drove by a couple of houses in Sunnyvale, CA that were covered in Christmas lights choreographed to music that could be heard by tuning your car stereo to a certain channel.
On both occasions I wondered to myself, who would have the time to spend on such projects year over year? Then I realized that this was not unlike all of the brilliant and willing software contributors who work tirelessly in open-source communities to build great software that other people can use, enjoy, and even use to make a living.
I am impressed with the passion that so many individuals have that causes them to DO what it is that they do. Its encouraging to see that people with passion can provide a great service to the rest of the world in small but meaningful ways.
While some people stand around wondering what can be accomplished or think about why things should or should not be done by them, others just DO.
So here is a thanks to all of the people that DO because they DO!
For every Ruby on Rails plug-in and gem, every Linux install and presentation given in a local user group—thanks!
