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daSHiZZLE:
So I'm trying to check out the URL Snooper app and I signed up for this forum, under the impression that I will get a free key after doing so, but then I'm told "Based on your original signup date, you will become eligible to receive a permanent non-expiring license key for non-donators on: May 04, 2011."

Is this really a good policy to deter people from stealing your software? What do I do now if I don't want to donate but still wonna check it out?

I've donated to free software devs and orgs before, but that's because I felt I wanted to and not made to jump through hoops to lay my hands on their work.

Sorry if I'm in the wrong forum for this, but I just felt the need to make this point to someone involved.

Peace.

wraith808:
I'm sure that you'll get an official response soon enough, but the policy is explained in great detail here.  Basically, you get an expiring key when you first download the software.  This key is good for 6 months.  At the end of 6 months, you have to come back for another 6 month key.  Then at the end of a year's time, you get a non-expiring key.

The basic idea of the license key was to "equalize" the work involved in donating and not donating. After donating to the site, a user gets a single license key which works on all of our programs and lets them run forever (a donation also entitles users to other membership benefits).

If a user chooses not to donate, he/she must sign up and download a free license key which lasts six months, after which the user must return to the site to download another free license key. After a year they are given a permanent license.

The main idea for requiring people to sign up for free license keys was that we wanted to make it actually "easier" and "quicker" to donate than to not donate. In this way, we hoped to remove the effort imbalance that keeps people from going through the work of donating. By making people work a little to get the freeware keys we hoped to make it easier for those with money to donate than to grab the free version, while still putting only a minor inconvenience on those who couldn't afford to (or refuse to donate).

Asking users to sign up to download a free license key had another substantial side benefit, which was that by default such users are signed up to receive our mailing list that goes out twice a month. We do not send out advertisements to this mailing list or sell access to it, but it does give us a chance to let people know about new features on the site and give us a chance to reach potential future donors (users can easily remove themselves from this list if they don't want to be contacted).

--- End quote ---

Again, I'm sure that mouser will reply himself at a later time, but I just wanted to respond to let you know that you were being heard. :)

mouser:
First thing that needs to be said is thank you for taking the time to post.

As wraith says -- you can use Url Snooper freely without making a donation and without having to wait.  The license key you download today will last for 6 months without any limitation in the software.  After 6 months if you still like using the software, you have to visit the page again and download a new license key.  6 months after that, if you still like using the software, you will be given a license key that will never expire and you'll never have to come back again.

We know this is unusual, and maybe it sounds complicated.  I know it can seem annoying and frustrating, especially if you are like me and don't want to have to be bothered with silliness when all you are interested in is finding a tool to do the job.

I just ask that you try to understand where we are coming from -- while the rest of the internet is making money off of advertisements or selling commercial software, we are trying very hard to make our own way in the world by building a place where people can pay what they want to directly support the continued development of software.

Ironically, and tragically - it turns out that while many people seem to have no trouble paying for software that they can't get free, few people are willing to contribute money to a software project unless there is some compelling reason to do so.  We are trying hard to find a way to strike a balance -- to keep our software free and easy to use, but at the same time find a way to reach people and explain how important it is that we have their financial support *if* they like what we are doing and can afford to support us.

You can read a little bit more about some of reasons we do things the way we do here.

daSHiZZLE:
Thank you.

These were not the kind of replies I expected.

I though you guys would show me the door, I had something rehearsed in my head to the affect of "well, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up".

It wasn't obvious to me on the sign up page that I would be given a tempr key.

Looking forward to finding that key and check out these forums once I'm back home. :)

cranioscopical:
Looking forward to finding that key and check out these forums once I'm back home.
-daSHiZZLE (May 04, 2010, 05:25 PM)
--- End quote ---
You may find that, on your return, and like many others here, DonationCoder starts to feel very much like home, especially to one with an open-minded attitude such as you just displayed. Welcome aboard!

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