Yes indeed, Yet Another Successful Hacktoberfest (YASH) has concluded, the PR counts are in and verified, Hactoberfest 2021 DEV.to badges have been claimed, and T-Shirts (or Trees to be planted) are on their way to all of the mailboxes of participants.

This annual celebration of the ending of Hacktoberfest, especially for those of us who have participated in it for the past several years, is an affirmation of the significance and benefit of FOSS and Open Source in general.

Each and every past participant knows the relevance of bringing the world of Open Source to the community at large - and not just programmers either! Many are authors and documentarians, more extremely important aspects of continuous integration and the usage of Linus Torvalds' creation in Git.

This time Both GitHub and GitLab were included as available resources for generating valid pull requests, and rightly so - because the creation of code and content aren't limited to just one single forge any more than the spirit of open source software is limited to an elite crew of mavericks - this is mainstream, and to be certain, something that over the last few years has been proven as one of the most significant disruptors in software development.

By incorporating the carrot and carrot approach we have been able to encourage thousands upon thousands of new onboarders to the world of open source, from neophytes to hobbyists to seasoned programmers from the world of proprietary closed source philosophies, the opportunity and importance of open source is unfolded, presented as something that all of us can gain advantage from the adoption of, and further, create a richer, more wonderful ecosystem of development in software engineering, publishing, and even sharing recipes.

With all of these things being realized, the closing of each years annual Hacktoberfest is not an ending, but indeed a beginning, for each new participant that we encouraged and welcomed to participate, and it heralds a new era for tomorrows magnificent possibilities.

Already, our sights are focused on this new beginning, and plans for the next, and best ever, Hacktoberfest 2022.

Thank you all for attending, and especially, a wholeheartedly congratulatory thanks to all of the newest members of the Hacktoberfest family who took the time to successfully complete their first year!