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Motivation For Freeware Maintenance?

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Apathetic_Coding:
You love coding, developing, and building a product. It is great while you are really moving along and even better the closer to release.

... But what about after? If you release as freeware with no ulterior motives and very little donations coming in what is your motivation to support all the users you have acquired? Why would you spend quite a bit of your free time fixing tiny bugs, answering e-mails and pushing updates?

Anyone in a similar situation that can offer up their reasoning behind sticking with it?

skwire:
Pride.  Also, the satisfaction that somebody else is using something you created.  In regards to Coding Snacks, I thoroughly enjoy taking somebody's idea and creating something tangible for them.  For me, it's never been about donations though I do appreciate, and use, them.  I'm gainfully employed full-time, so I keep my donations as sort of a "fun money" account for me to buy bits, bobs, toys, games and software.  =]

mouser:
i think you've asked that on the right forum.

one of the best things about the donationcoder forum is how fun it is to interact with users and have your software discovered by more people who enjoy it and say so.  it can be really rewarding to have people who like and use your software and want to talk to you about it and test it and come up with new ideas, etc.  it makes it fun and motivating to keep working on a program.

Apathetic_Coding:
You both have good reasons and I do feel the same way.
I guess sometimes it is easy to get burnt out for a little while.
Thank for reminding me.  :D

mouser:
I think there is another side of the coin that also bears talking about.

Whether you are a blog writer or a small independent coder, it's quite common to spend a lot of time creating stuff and feeling like it's unappreciated.  Even with such a great community at DC, it happens that someone will post something and it falls through the cracks -- no one notices it or it doesn't grab their attention.  And then other times something random will get tons of attention and generate huge enthusiam and it would be easy to start to feel like you aren't appreciated.

Now some people handle this by re-doubling their efforts to create and write stuff that other people will notice and appreciate.  And that's certainly one approach.  But another approach is to find the part about what you are doing that gives you pleasure, and not overly concern yourself about needing to find an audience.  Don't make your enjoyment be dependent too much on the reactions from others.  If you can figure out how to get your own satisfaction from what you do, everything else is just gravy.

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