A new release of FlashDevelop came out a couple days ago (version 2.02), and I suddenly realized I've been getting a lot of good stuff from the open-source Flash community lately. So while filled with the holiday spirit and a sudden sense of responsibility, I figured it was time to give back.

Open-source developers aren't in it for the money or the fame (ok, maybe some of 'em might be in it for the fame), but simply for the love of the project and a sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, that sense of fulfillment rarely pays the bills. Thus, most of them depend on the kindness of strangers — what a traditional business might call "customers" — to help them make ends meet while they toil on the latest point release.

So if you find yourself benefiting from the hard work of the volunteer community — whether it's your use of FlashDevelop, Mozilla Firefox, the SEPY Actionscript editor, the Eclipse project or any other open-source Flash project — please consider making a gift to the hard-working developers this holiday season.

I just dropped a few coins on FlashDevelop myself, and strangely enough, it just feels a little more solid now.

Meanwhile, I hope everyone else has a great holiday season: Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Illustrious Eid al-Adha, Cool Kwanzaa, Super Solstice and Funky Dec. 27th, everybody!

Happy New Year,

— VeryVito