Dear OSS community on Mastodon,
Every day I scroll through my feed and I see proud announcements like:
“First Alpha Relase of HyperTurboWidget available"
or
“Version 2.7.1 now with improved glorb handlers!”
or
“Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is out”
… and I sit there wondering if I should be excited, terrified, or calling a licensed electrician.
Don’t get me wrong, I love open source. I just have no idea what three quarters of these projects actually do. Are we talking about a web server? A file system? A middleware thingy that keeps the flux from overflowing into the space–time continuum?
So, dear OSS developers of the world: When you announce a new release, please give us (your adoring but slightly confused audience) just a tiny bit of context.
Tell us what your software does.
Tell us why this release is cool.
Tell us what it requires to work.
Example:
We are proud to announce Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is now avalaible. While it creates a nice wormhole to 1955, it requires an underlying gigawatt stack 1.21 to work reliably.
Because nobody wants to cheer enthusiastically for “v2.7.1” while secretly Googling “what is a glorb and why does it need handling”.
Yours truly,
Someone who wants to celebrate your achievements
Martin Seeger
npub125…mk5gh
2025-12-08 10:24:24 UTC
Author Public Key
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2025-12-08 10:24:24 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Dear OSS community on Mastodon,\n\nEvery day I scroll through my feed and I see proud announcements like:\n\n“First Alpha Relase of HyperTurboWidget available\"\n\nor\n\n“Version 2.7.1 now with improved glorb handlers!”\n\nor\n\n“Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is out”\n\n… and I sit there wondering if I should be excited, terrified, or calling a licensed electrician.\n\nDon’t get me wrong, I love open source. I just have no idea what three quarters of these projects actually do. Are we talking about a web server? A file system? A middleware thingy that keeps the flux from overflowing into the space–time continuum?\n\nSo, dear OSS developers of the world: When you announce a new release, please give us (your adoring but slightly confused audience) just a tiny bit of context.\n\nTell us what your software does.\nTell us why this release is cool.\nTell us what it requires to work.\n\nExample:\n\nWe are proud to announce Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is now avalaible. While it creates a nice wormhole to 1955, it requires an underlying gigawatt stack 1.21 to work reliably.\n\nBecause nobody wants to cheer enthusiastically for “v2.7.1” while secretly Googling “what is a glorb and why does it need handling”.\n\nYours truly,\n\nSomeone who wants to celebrate your achievements",
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