5 open source projects I use daily: thank the Maintainers #MaintainerWeek
Tags: githunt
Published: 2021-06-11 09:05:48

This week is Maintainer Week. If you haven't heard about it, then you're definitely missing out. Maintainer Week is a week-long event where the community is called to thank, celebrate, appreciate, and support people who maintain open source software: Maintainers.

## Open Source Software

"Why is it important?" you might ask. According to [ZD Net](https://www.zdnet.com/article/its-an-open-source-world-78-percent-of-companies-run-open-source-software/) 78% of companies around the world are running open source software. Elsewhere, you might hear stats like how the majority of the world's software is built on open source. [GitHub pointed out in one of their latest blog posts](https://github.com/readme/unseen-oss) that people "use more open source software than [they] think". With all these statistics floating around the internet, there's definitely cause to not take open source for granted.

Maintainer Week is here to remind the community not to take open source for granted. And importantly, to remember, thank, and support the people who look after these projects: Maintainers.

So with that in mind, I set about ensuring I would be thanking one open source piece of software and their Maintainers each day on [my Twitter account](https://twitter.com/MishManners). There's only been five days, so I'll share the five I've already profiled on social media. Next week, expect to see five more! :heart:

## [Open Broadcast Software](https://obsproject.com/)

One of my favourite open source pieces of software is Open Broadcast Software (OBS).

{% twitter 1401796189675085825 %}

I use this every single day for zoom calls (thank you for adding built-in virtual cameras), to presentations, [Twitch streams](https://twitch.tv/MishManners) and recordings. The Maintainers have been working on [OBS](https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio) for years and have just released version 27.0. Thank you to [Jim](https://github.com/jp9000) and the team for this amazing software.

## [VideoLAN](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

If you've ever tried to play some random video file and it doesn't work, then you've probably come across VideoLAN (VLC). It's a god of a media player and plays pretty much any crazy media file you can throw at it.

{% twitter 1402123804575375363 %}

I've been using it as my primary player for years. Thanks to [JB Kempf](https://github.com/jbkempf), [François Cartegnie](https://github.com/fcartegnie), [Felix Paul Kühne](https://github.com/fkuehne) and the whole VLC team for making sure I can always play my files.

## [ScreenToGif](https://www.screentogif.com/)

I've already shared this one in a Dev.to post before so I won't go to much into it.

{% link https://dev.to/mishmanners/the-best-easiest-quickest-way-to-create-screen-capture-gifs-2754 %}

Thanks to [Nicke Manarin](https://github.com/NickeManarin) for this sweet piece of tech which I use to quickly create gifs for all my posts!

{% twitter 1402540261805158406 %}

## GitHub CLI

Another one I won't go into too much since I've written a tonne about it in the past. GitHub's own CLI is completely open source.

{% link https://dev.to/mishmanners/power-of-the-github-cli-42m8 %}

Massive thanks to [Mislav](https://github.com/mislav) for being at the forefront of this project for almost a decade! You're the best. If you want to check out our chat with Mislav, watch our interview:

{% youtube -_jaBlQbj4U %}

{% twitter 1402869017681879047 %}

## [Chatty](https://chatty.github.io/)

If you're a Twitch streamer, you've probably wondered about the best way to monitor and record your Twitch chat. When I first [started streaming](https://twitch.tv/MishManners) I looked around for a way to save my Twitch chat. I quickly came across [Chatty](https://github.com/chatty/chatty).

{% twitter 1403151019526156289 %}

It's built on JavaScript and has heaps of Twitch-specific features like emotes, badges, dark mode, and more. Thanks to [tduva](https://github.com/tduva) for building me something to save all my amazing chatters.

## Other things happening around Maintainer Week

Maintainer Week isn't just about thanking Maintainers or thinking about it, there's lots of fun things too. [GitHub put together an awesome list](https://github.com/github/maintainerweek) of events happening during Maintainer Week.

{% github github/maintainerweek %}

There's a few live streams occurring around the internet. GitHub has its own [Maintainer Summit](https://globalmaintainersummit.github.com/), and Changelog is even giving [Maintainers free t-shirts](https://changelog.com/posts/thank-a-maintainer-on-us). All you need to do is thank a Maintainer and tag [Changelog on Twitter](https://twitter.com/changelog).

Check out the repo for more info and ways to celebrate Maintainer Week. I'll be back next week sharing another five awesome open source projects and their Maintainers.