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Author Topic: An Idea - DonationWare award type thing  (Read 4347 times)

mouser

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An Idea - DonationWare award type thing
« on: September 30, 2005, 08:22 PM »
I was thinking maybe we might discuss and form a set of things that if a donationware author achieved we would give a kind of award as a symbol that they are doing something good, and maybe try to form a kind of allegience between such sites.

Here is an idea of what i was thinking about:
1) All of their software should be donationware (+freeware); meaning that they should be usable without limits and without regular nag screens, for an unlimited amount of time, for non-commercial use.
2) It would be ok if they had a dual license and charged for commercial use, and if they required anything like postcard, or email opt-out, etc., as long as all of the software could be used fully by people without money.
3) There must be no adware or spyware in the programs.
4) They must have a forum where users can post problems and get help (this might be controversial requirement).

So you see the idea is to set a kind of high bar for ethical donationware and then form a kind of web ring or logo that such donationware coders could display in order to indicate to people that their site meets these standards.

Any site/author meeting these guidelines should be supported by us, by offering help, hosting or overflow hosting if its needed, etc.

Anyway, just an idea to encourage good donationware coding and reward those authors.

zridling

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Re: An Idea - DonationWare award type thing
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2005, 10:27 PM »
That's a great idea, and would help users follow donationware sources that could meet their needs. Might I suggest the logo be both discreet and cool. Here's one from an old website: