In a new post to his site Junior Grossi shares some of his thoughts about Open Source and how it's less about "free software" and more about sharing and giving back.

Maintaining an open source project – even a small one – is not an easy task. The open source ecosystem is about sharing and contributing, about giving and receiving. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.

He suggests that working in Open Source is less about the actual software that's being written as it is a lifestyle. For him, the goal is to make someone else's life better by working on something you're sharing (instead of working on something commercial). He includes a quote from Fabien Potencier (of Symfony) about Open Source developers being exploited for their free software and how, despite the gift of time and work spent on the code, some people don't appreciate the work and just complain.

Instead of complaining about features or bugfixes, do it yourself, and show your gratitude for people that spent their free time working on something to help your life. They could be with their family but no, they were doing open-source. And you should thank them for that.

He finishes with a few thoughts about giving back to the projects you use and enjoy. It doesn't always have to be about code too - you can submit bugs, contribute to documentation or even just write up a tutorial to share your own knowledge of using the package.