Donation experiences

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webfork
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Donation experiences

#1 Post by webfork »

Disclaimer: I know freeware donations are very few and far between, even for very popular projects, so spending a lot of energy on this topic is probably pointless but just in case it's helpful...

As of today, I've donated to 16 different projects (excluding Serva, which was purchased). In terms of response, here are the results:
  • Asuite (Matteo Salvi) - I'm (slowly) trying to assist with his project so he basically just said thanks, which was fine.
  • Splat (Skwire) - contacted me to say thanks and also asked me if there was any features I'd like to see (also great).
  • TinyTask - wrote a long and very warm, personal email. Very unexpected and cool from a team that I thought had abandoned that program.
Those responses were great but I was surprised that none of the other project reached out to me in any way. Why major ones like VLC and LibreOffice didn't have a program of some type to try and encourage more involvement was especially confusing.

Suggestions
  • Thanks, ask about Feature Requests - as above
  • Kudos lists e.g. https://www.gnupg.org/donate/kudos.html (should be optional)
  • Mailing list / newsletter (optional). Some sense that progress is ongoing

Related
  • Feature Bounties - I saw Pidgin set this up a long time ago, essentially generating a list of possible, new features and letting donations decide what would get the development time.
  • Why it is important. If your program is helpful with security, you can cast your program against recent security news to demonstrate its importance (the GPG site above had a great page for this in the recent past but it's since been taken down).
  • Check out other fundraising efforts for ideas. For example: http://reactos.com/reactos-fundraiser-2012 and https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/ca ... f=category
Would anything a developer do make you want to donate?

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smaragdus
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Re: Donation experiences

#2 Post by smaragdus »

more or less off-topic

You mentioned TinyTask. I use on a daily basis another product by the same developer- TyperTask, for me this is a tiny treasure of a program, a real time-saver, I can't calculate the amount of time it saved for me automatically typing repetitive pieces of text. This developer definitely deserves a donation for releasing for free such a nice little program. Yet I have to confess that years ago when I was inexperienced, trusted Avast blindly (by the way I no longer use it) and knew nothing about false positives I accused the developer of TyperTask of spreading malware. Later I understood my mistake, uploaded a sample to Avast who confirmed that this was really a false positive and removed TyperTask from their malware database but the damage was done and as a result it seemed that Vista Software Inc blocked my IP although I apologized. More, Softpedia released a special note, explaining that TyperTask was 100% clean:
Note: Some antivirus and antispyware programs flag TyperTask as being infected/malware, although the application is perfectly safe and does not pose a threat to your system. This is called a 'false positive'. The term false positive is used when antivirus software wrongly classifies an innocuous ( inoffensive ) file as a virus. The incorrect detection may be due to heuristics or to an incorrect virus signature in a database. [Similar problems can occur with antitrojan or antispyware software.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20120507061 ... Task.shtml
I was very sorry for my rashness, stupidity and for the insult I inflicted upon the developer of one of my favourite programs and never dared to contact them with feature requests. Since then I am very careful with the anti-virus false detections and even more careful with false accusations.

Specular
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Re: Donation experiences

#3 Post by Specular »

webfork wrote:[*] Splat (Skwire) - contacted me to say thanks and also asked me if there was any features I'd like to see (also great).
Maybe I should donate to see a small feature introduced :D
webfork wrote:Would anything a developer do make you want to donate?
Take requests for useful features within a specified scope set by the developer, or if a project is open source use Bounty Source. That said in general I could see it being difficult due to the variations in donation amounts and the increased expectancy that donations = get to tell the devs what you'd like, some of which may run contrary to the design goals of a project or just be unrealistic which is why I think donations should be more about supporting projects you already like and submit feature requests through the regular channels.

A thanks is always appreciated though :)

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joby_toss
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Re: Donation experiences

#4 Post by joby_toss »

When I donate to a project, I expect absolutely nothing in return from the developer. No, I'm not just saying that, I truly don't expect anything back.
I did donate once with a little pressure for a new feature, but I was wrong in doing that.

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Midas
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Re: Donation experiences

#5 Post by Midas »

joby_toss wrote:When I donate to a project, I expect absolutely nothing in return from the developer.

Likewise... 8)

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webfork
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Re: Donation experiences

#6 Post by webfork »

Joby wrote:I expect absolutely nothing in return from the developer
Of course you're right. There's nothing written or unwritten that suggests devs have to make additional effort for those that donate. In fact, most of the programs I contribute to so they've been doing ME a favor for months or years so really the donation is just balancing the scales.
specular wrote: ... which is why I think donations should be more about supporting projects you already like and submit feature requests through the regular channels.
Very well said.

It comes down to the fact that -- as I'm not a developer -- it's difficult to make recommendations to developers' projects. Instead, I tried to put together something in terms of a view from the other side. I'll try coming at this from another angle.

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tactictoe
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Re: Donation experiences

#7 Post by tactictoe »

joby_toss wrote:When I donate to a project, I expect absolutely nothing in return from the developer. No, I'm not just saying that, I truly don't expect anything back.
I did donate once with a little pressure for a new feature, but I was wrong in doing that.
I do agree with that. Donation should just be support for the developer for whatever he wants. A paid holiday with his/her/their family he/she/they sacrificed for the community, a ham sandwich? If you really want money for your effort developing a software go commercial, all the way. Donation do not work as a revenue and bring lots of complex situation. Taxes come in mind. About asking for feature with a donation? That is wrong, it should stay as a wish not as an order or 'forced' wish to perform because you paid... No you did not pay you did donate. I did try myself in the past the donation way, here is the result of my experience:
- Very little donation and so few of it.
- Some donation come with request that involve more hours of work the donation would pay for... as in 3 dollars for 12 Hours work.
- Some donation are absorbed by taxes.
- You cannot rely on donation at all, they come scarce and they cannot justify a living or even support for software. Better go commercial freelance in this case scenario.
This is a reason I do not ask for donation for any of my freeware. Why should I? It simply does not work. I still understand some do it but aftermath it will buy you a couple of coffee and that is all. Big donation happens thought, they are so very rare thought. And if it happens, it means you should have put this software commercial in the first place; the donation there means you have found a niche for non existent software or a software that offers function people are in need of. Some might still go freeware just for the spirit, I am one with such spirit. I just do not believe in the donation... It's a begging style in a way.

This was my humble opinion, my two cents.

Have all a nice day.

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