Can channels through which open-source software is consumed strengthen ex- pressions of gratitude between users and developers? Open-source software is the infrastructure on which all of digital society relies on. It is vital to the functioning of governments, private companies, and individual lives. Yet, ways to show support to those who work on open-source software – often unpaid volunteers – are few. An important reason could be that the way in which software is packaged and distributed alienates the software from the developer. Indeed, this is what allows for the rapid distribution and efficient use of this software, but it also re-inscribes a kind of software-centrism, centering attention on the technical capabilities of the software rather than the labor involved. As a result, users are far more likely to reach out only when they have a complaint. This lack of positive feedback can be a major cause for burnout, which risks slowed innovation, or worse, maintainers discontinuing work that much of our digital infrastructure is critically reliant on.

We introduce a VS Code extension, Hug Reports, that detects packages imported by a user within their code and renders an inline button for sending a thanks message to the developers of those packages, from within VS Code. We deployed Hug Reports with 20 participants (“expressers”) over a two-week period to observe its use in situ and to understand how and when participants experienced and expressed gratitude. To investigate how the gratitude would be received and interpreted, we aggregated thanks messages logged during the course of our deployment and sent these to the developers they were addressed to (“recipients”), inviting them to participate in a survey and interview. We present our findings from this formative deployment and discuss implications for designing appreciation systems.

This thesis contributes (1) a technical system that aims to give users a way to express appreciation; (2) empirical insights about how gratitude is experienced and communicated within software development workflows and how gratitude is received and interpreted within the culture of open-source projects; (3) design implications of an appreciation system in the context of open source.

43 pages

Thesis Committee:
Geoff Kaufman (Chair)
Chinmay Kulkarni
Bogdan Vasilescu

Srinivasan Seshan, Head, Computer Science Department
Martial Hebert, Dean, School of Computer Science

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