Yesterday I received an automated notification e-mail informing that my additions to the BlogEngine.NET source code have been merged with the main repository. This is really a new kind of experience to me. Although I have contributed to open-source development, it's the first time I'm so inspired by the project and interested in its evolution. And, probably, it is the first time I know my change has been accepted.

Speaking about the contribution itself, it's a small enhancement to the Month List widget. Since I started to use it, I wanted to display a flat list of months, sorted from recent to oldest:

• January 2010
• December 2009
• November 2009, etc.

I added two properties – GroupByYear and RecentDatesAtTop – to implement that. Without changing these, the widget looks the default way to retain backwards compatibility.

This is a phrase that came to me after watching Seth Godin's inspiring video Ideas That Spread, Win:

Many ideas were born from sharing the idea that ideas can be shared.