Open source contribution as a sign of affection

Recently, we received a pull request from a customer. We were happy to accept the change and have released a new build of the LDAP Provisioning tool. We have yet to fully test the new build but we put it out as early access so other people can still benefit from the new feature.
For developers who are not working in open source projects, you probably think that it would be great when other people give you “free work”. It is nice to get help but it is hardly free. We invest extra time and effort to write instructions and automation for getting a development environment setup and being able to build. Furthermore, there is still work to test a release and get it into customer hands. The real value to us, is the signal that customers are getting enough value from the product to spend their own time making it better. To that end, we try hard to make sure users can make contributions easily. Code changes are good, but so are defect reports and feature requests.
These signals of value are personally gratifying but they also signal to other users or potential users that there is value in these integrations. So, if you are using one of the integrations we provide, please show us what you value by working with us.