This morning, my YouTube channel passed 25,000 subscribers, and that's only a couple weeks after I was amazed to see it pass ten thousand! I'm working on my next video on the Turing Pi cluster, and it will be out very soon, but I thought I'd try to do something special for 25,000 subscribers.
The videos I make for my YouTube channel wouldn't be possible without me relying on the work of thousands of people, working on thousands of open source projects. I want to see how much I can pay it forward for them in this video.
So I'm going to give away this brand new 8 GB Raspberry Pi 4 that I just got in the mail today. All you have to do to enter is support any open source contributor or creator—someone on Patreon, on GitHub Sponsors, on Open Collective, a small donation in someone's tip jar on PayPal, it can be anything.
Just look at the open source software you use, go to one of the contributor's websites, and donate something. It could be a few bucks to buy a cup of coffee, or it could be a big monthly donation, it doesn't matter.
Do that, then take a screenshot of your support for that contributor, and fill out this Google Form.
A week or so from now, I'll do a full review of the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB, then I'll send it, and a copy of my book, to one lucky winner.
There are thousands of open source developers whose lives you can touch. Instead of talking about my YouTube channel, I wanted to take this milestone to share an open source story that helped me start my software development career.
I started out my career as web developer, first designing static HTML websites for small businesses and nonprofits, then I moved on to work on podcasting and video distribution on the web. I started working with Drupal for one of my biggest websites, and after a couple years using it, I thought I should try to give back some of my time to benefit the software that had saved me so much time in my life.
I was having some trouble with my first contribution, and I remember spending a couple hours one random weekday working through it, and the whole time, there was an extremely patient and generous person helping me on that journey, and her name was webchick, otherwise known as Angie Byron. She's still helping the Drupal community today, and I am so thankful to her for the time she spent helping me in that issue.
I finally got to meet her in person a couple years ago, and I even worked for the same company for a couple years, and I will always remember how she helped me get started contributing back to the Drupal community.
First impressions matter so much, and after that experience, I was hooked on open source.
I've worked with people in many open source communities. By and large, the interactions have reinforced my love for open source development.
So I want to take this opportunity to thank so many open source developers who never get thanked. Even if you can't donate a few bucks, go on Twitter, or Instagram, or IRC, and tell someone thank you for their work. Chances are you have benefitted from dozens of open source projects in your life, even if you don't work with open source software directly like I do.
So to recap:
- Go donate to a contributor or open source project.
- Take a screenshot of your donation.
- Fill out this form to enter to win a brand new 8GB Pi 4!