I Blog Because I Care

My dad used to have a sweater that read: “I yell because I care”. For anyone with kids I'm sure you understand. As the year comes to and end, we often start putting things in perspective. We start thinking about what is important to us and what we take for granted.

With all the talk recently on Planet Eclipse about what is Eclipse and who makes it up, one thing became obvious, we all write about it because we care. Of course some people get paid to work on Eclipse, and some may even get paid to blog about it, but everyone who has written recently puts more than their 40 hours in.

If Eclipse is Steve, Wayne, Alex, Mike M., David, Eugene, etc... then Eclipse really deserves a big thank-you. A thank-you to Wassim who was online at 3am answering my questions, A thank-you to Ed Merks, who gets to work around 6 to continue. Thank-you to Randy who actually took time to look and comment on ideas I had. Thank-you Eclipse!

With an open system that spans the globe, people's words can often be misinterpreted. What one person sees as an example of something that can be improved, someone else sees as a criticism of their work. While there are things we can improve about Eclipse, there is a lot we have done right. I think this gets overlooked sometimes. So next time you are reading a blog about everything wrong with your favorite feature or the criticizing the bug you worked so tirelessly on, remember, people are only writing about it because they care. And if anyone feels I offended them on bug report or blog post, we'll get together (hopefully at EclipseCon), I'll buy you a drink and we can share a few eclipse stories :)