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12826

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 01:22 PM »

40hz, this is something i've thought about too -- i think it has huge merit.

In some sense this is a principle that DonationCoder tries to use already.  That is -- part of the approach here is to offer lots of different software and hope that over the course of a year or two a user might see our name mentioned here and there and find a program or two that they find useful, and eventually see enough of interest to feel comfortable making a donation.  And after that they can send their donationcredits to different authors, etc.

I don't think the details are as important as the basic idea of figuring out a way to:
1. Reduce the risk people feel from making a donation/contribution
2. Reduce the work they have to go through to donate

The APP stores largely solve these problems -- though they aren't set up to let users pay whatever amount they want.  and some of them are set up to have so much crap that i think users wouldn't spend any time considering how much to donate, and so would donate a penny per app.

So the APP store idea is not a perfect match for donationware type software.. but there are lessons to learn from it..

12827

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 11:18 AM »

Nod5, love the new avatar 

there is a PdfMasher thread here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=27965.0

12828

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 09:29 AM »

In a previous post i mentioned that the primary goals and motivations of the freeware/opensource developer are different from commercial software developers, which can help explain partly the search for an alternative model that could bring some financial support.

But I think the equally important (at least in my case) and less talked about factor, involves the SKILLS of those involved.

Speaking just for myself, I lack the skills and comfort level and drive that make people good entrepreneurs.

Part of my motivation for wanting to find an alternative donation-based model has to do with my discomfort and poor ability to play the role of salesman/marketer/etc., which goes hand in hand with my misgivings about the fundamentals of capitalism and my perception that greed is really one of the root evils of this world.  But leaving the philosophy aside -- for me it's probably more about wanting to find something I am comfortable with, good at, and feel good about doing.

I know i'm beating this horse to death -- I think we're all on the same page in being curious what new models might work and exploring the space of possible models, so let's concentrate on that!

12829

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 08:45 AM »

Steering us back in more productive direction, i'm still very interested in trying to come up with a new alternative to the kinds of things that DC (and fairware) does in terms of "nag" screens, which we both use to some degree or another.. and understanding the intricacies of why that has proven hard to get away from.  Some discussion of that is here.

12830

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 08:09 AM »

All fair points 40hz.  I tend to go a bit overboard when talking about large companies and corporations, in terms of the machinery for maximizing profit.  I do think that the larger the company gets, the less bearing and influence that the ethics of individuals plays a role, and the more the institution takes on a single-purpose mind of its own.

And I certainly didn't mean to imply that any small business was any less ethical than freeware developers.  And I acknowledge that many small business people are interested in more than just profit.  The point I was trying to make is simply that the priorities and core goals of serious commercial software companies are different from the goals of most freeware/open source coders, and that this explains much of the different focus of the two camps.

I always think about these things from a dynamical systems perspective, and the idea of stable states -- and the fear that what we have in the software world looks like there are only two real stable states -- one where profit maximization is king, and one where software is free and raising voluntary donations is close to impossible; where any other configurations is unstable and will get driven out of the "marketplace" by a competitor closer to one of these two stable states..  From this standpoint, I think we are all just looking to find a stable state in this world that is somewhere in between these two and hoping one exists out there somewhere..

12831

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Pledge Teaser: Web Link Captor, aka LL Robot

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 07:56 AM »

Let me see if i can't code it this month (september) and release a beta.

12832

Living Room / Re: PCWorld recommends DonationCoder.com and says: "Give a Little, Get a Lot"

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 07:15 AM »

Well, there is a case where the refund would not be possible.. If the donation was specifically sent by the donator to an author, and the author cashed out the donation after 30 days, and the author didn't have enough donations in their credits to handle a refund, we wouldn't be able to refund it.  This has never happened but it is possible.  I suppose I should add some asterisk to the refund statement about this.

12833

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: DIY Laundry Basket Dresser

« Last post by mouser on September 11, 2011, 07:04 AM »

Clever.

12834

Living Room / Re: PCWorld recommends DonationCoder.com and says: "Give a Little, Get a Lot"

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 11:45 PM »

From the Donate page:

"Our 100% Happiness Guarantee

    We want you to be proud to be a supporting member of our site! Should you ever become dissatisfied with our site, at any time, for any reason, please allow us to promptly refund your entire donation, and absorb the payment fees, no questions asked. And you are welcome to keep the lifetime license key in case you decide to try one of our programs again in the future."

12835

Living Room / PCWorld recommends DonationCoder.com and says: "Give a Little, Get a Lot"

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 08:44 PM »

A new donator emailed me to tell me we were mentioned in the October 2011 edition of PC World magazine, in an article on freeware (ironically i'm not sure any DC apps are recommended in that article even though PC World does frequently recommend our software).

Here's the sidebar mentioning us:


From the text:
"To find more donationware programs, a great resource is DonationCoder.com, a site that hosts the work of many freeware programmers but solicits donations on their behalf.  Best of all, DonationCoder.com certifies that none of the programs it hosts contain spyware or malware, and the site will refund your donation if you wish -- no questions asked.  With that kind of peace of mind, sending a little love to a hardworking programmer is easier than ever."

12836

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 06:46 PM »

40hz, many of your points are good ones, and if money was the sole or even main goal, it might be more cut and dried.

But many of us who are interested in this model have other interests and goals.

Ethics is one, as hgsoft mentioned.

But for me i think it's mainly about the kind of experience I want to have as a coder -- and the kind of experience I have always valued the most.  I get a lot of pleasure out of having a "relationship" (for lack of a better word) with the community of users that use my software.  I like the feeling of knowing that people are able to pay what they feel is right -- and I like the nature of the interactions I have with those kinds of users.  I think that's a large part of what DonationCoder is all about and why I love it here so much and why I appreciate everyone here.

That is a very different experience than one gets when selling software at a fixed price, or when one is focused on maximizing profit, and when dealing with "paying customers".

I'm not saying it's an all or nothing thing, I'm just saying that when you start considering a wider spectrum of goals and realize that profit is not at the top of the list, then these other approaches may start to make more sense.

One frustration has been coming to terms with how hard it is and how much energy must be expended to find a middle ground alternative approach.  I had a naive belief that if one started out with the position that it wasn't important to make lots of money -- that just making enough to survive would be sufficient -- then life would be a lot easier.

Unfortunately it seems to me that that's not been the case.. Our world economy in general, and software economy in specific, seems to have carved out these niches for commercial products that people expect and are happy to pay for, and "free" stuff that no one is required to pay for -- and that they therefore refuse to spend money on -- and it seems very hard to try to carve out a stable niche somewhere in between where people make voluntary payments.

One of the nice things about being on this site is meeting so many people who are supportive of the attempt to find an alternative approach, and who don't make you feel like an idiot or a sell out for floundering around struggling to find new ways to do so.

12837

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012: Promotional Videos (With Bonus Competition)

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 04:22 PM »

I think going for over-the-top exaggerated hyperbole and humour is the way to go with these..

12838

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 04:02 PM »

Good advice from steeladept.

A good rule for these kinds of threads is everyone gets to post once and then move on; I'm going to follow that rule after this post.

12839

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Poland

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 02:52 PM »

Where is baby cody currently? I want to send the CodyCards deck and a shotglass to meet up with him.

12840

Screenshot Captor / Re: Can I capture screens multiple times without having to open screenshot captor?

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 02:46 PM »

I'm afraid too many people don't discover that option to stay minimized -- in my opinion it's the best way to use the program 

12841

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 01:26 PM »

Following up on what others have suggested, one thing i have never understood is how one rationalizes and makes sense of something like the "9/11 Victim Compensation Fund".

Essentially, each family of someone killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks received money from the government which averaged "$2 million tax free".

I cannot wrap my head around the difference in the way we treated families of victims of 9/11 compared to how we treat victims of equally traumatic deaths and injuries.

If your spouse was killed instantly in the 9/11 attacks you get 2 million dollars from the government fund, a national memorial and day of morning, and a huge national support system.  If your spouse is raped and tortured and murdered by a serial killer you get nothing.  I just don't get that.

I'm not trying to be heartless -- I'm not begrudging anyone or trying to take away anyone's pain.  It just seems like yet another example of how reactions to this event have not been rational or proportionate given all of the other cases of death and suffering, both inside and outside of the US.


Edit:
Perhaps some of the explanation for why the 9/11 event felt like something especially traumatic has to do with how we can imagine the fear that so many people went through -- the visceral gut-level fear and panic of being trapped in a giant skyscraper that is on fire.  It's hard to imagine too many intensely scarier things that could happen to you.

12842

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 01:03 PM »

I suspect you are right about the low-risk of forking.

There is an interesting psychological phenomena at work when thinking about this stuff -- Some people have a really easy time in dealing rationally with a situation where the practical and likely risk is very different from a high-cost low-probability worst case possibility.  I am usually very good at that and generally give little thought to worst case scenarios.  But I must admit that in terms of forking in open source, for some reason i find myself dwelling on it.  I'm not exactly sure why, but it's the one part of open source that i still struggle with.

I think perhaps part of my struggle with it has to do with your points which i think are exactly right:

and, out of spite, creates a fork. Well, not only does that person need to spend time building the app for all platforms, but he also has to promote his fork, which unless you spend money in advertisement, can only be done in the long term.... unless they make significant improvements or spend a lot of money in advertising, I don't see why the users would choose this fork over the original. "

I think this is right -- but it may also help explain why psychologically i worry about forking -- which is that i find promotion/marketing/advertising so painful and uncomfortable and unpleasant, and the mere idea of finding myself in a situation where i have to try to make the case that people should stick with my original version over a fork is enough to make me ill.

And i also get very angry with the possibility of 3rd parties making a large profit off of someone else's hard programming work.. Much like lawsuits, my fear is that the primary thing keeping predatory forkers away is these cases is that there isn't enough profit to make it worth while.  Practically speaking perhaps this means that one shouldn't worry about it.  But it's hard for me to not think about running into one greedy or angry person who could cause real turmoil.

I think my other trepidation with forking has to do with a larger bias in open source.  Stallman and other focus nearly exclusively on maximizing the rights and benefits of the users of the software, and give very little concern to the authors.  When I was at university this seemed completely right to me -- what did i care about raising funding or donations for my code -- i wasn't trying to make a living on it, and there were so many other reasons to want to create useful and popular software.

But if you want to move to a model where programmers can actually receive enough direct contributions to survive (no one is talking about getting rich), i find the lack of concern with author's rights to be troubling.  Practically speaking i think this issue rarely comes up (though there have been a few noteworthy forks that have occurred despite adamant protests from the original coder).  But i still find myself wondering if there isn't some way to adjust the forking-rights commonly present in open source so that it still protects users but gives some protection to authors that want to maintain some control of their software...  And some way of building in protection for authors against people whose intentions are to unethically redirect donations to the original authors..


Anyway, I'm glad you found us here and I hope we can continue the discussion about these issues and see if we can learn more about possible approaches and maybe discover additional ideas that work better for both users and coders. 

12843

Living Room / Re: Thoughts in remembrance of 911

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 10:27 AM »

I hope we can avoid this becoming an angry political thread.  Let's all try our best to keep things very civil, polite, and respectful.

A lot of people experienced an unimaginable amount of fear and suffering on that day and they deserve some reflection.  But it's hard to avoid thinking about the waves of changes that radiated from that event and what they mean.

Here's an interesting article by someone who i frequently disagree with but has been pretty open about his emotional reactions to 9/11, and his changing ideas over time about 9/11 and what came after:

"Bin Laden hoped to provoke a civilizational war between Islam and the West. And we took the bait."
http://www.thedailyb...ama-win-on-9-11.html


Personal notes: I grew up in downtown Manhattan with clear view of the world trade centers; I always loved the look of them.  My mother worked in one of them for a few years (forget which tower) in the 1990s.  On the day of 9/11 i was woken up by a panicked phone call from my best friend from his work office in the financial district saying the streets were full of smoke or dust or something and that people thought there might be some kind of terrorist attack.  It was very surreal.

12844

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 10:18 AM »

Two suggestions:

• On the contribute page, make a way to let user send a general contribution not tied to a specific product.
• Let users add a comment to the paypal payment (there is a flag for this when setting up paypal details).

12845

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 10, 2011, 10:14 AM »

EDIT: Looks like App beat me to posting some details but i'll leave my post unchanged.


Looks like I'm going to spend part of today reading the articles at http://www.hardcoded.net/articles/ -- looks like great reading  

Welcome to the site hsoft!

It sounds like your approach is working, and shares a lot in common with the approach we've followed here.  You can read the 2006 article I wrote about our approach here.

Some similarities I see:

• Assessing the problem: We both agree that users not donating has little to do with not being willing to pay, and more to do with not wanting to go through the hassle of paying; i think laziness is only half the equation -- the other is that they view paying as too high a financial risk compared to the benefits.
• Dealing with people who actively want to circumvent the system: Solution = Don't worry about it, it's not important.
• License Key: We both use a license key for contributors to bypass a nag reminder to donate.

Some differences that are very interesting

Nag screen and non-contributors:

In our programs (that use license key system), we offer a free license key even to people who do not contribute.  They can either download a 60 day key anonymously, or a 6 month key by signing up at the forum.  This has been the source of quite a bit of confusion and hand wringing.  But it's also a way that we maintain that our software is genuinely free for all, and avoid having a nag screen shown on each use.

In your case, you always show a nag screen to non-contributors (as long as their are unpaid hours).  This is quite interesting actually.  Based on my informal experience, i suspect this is a huge part of getting donations.

I think if we did that we would greatly increase the number of donations.  Perhaps by several orders of magnitude.  The reality is that a nag screen on every startup of program is a much stronger incentive to contribute than any please we might make.

However, in our case, with closed source -- the closed source freeware community would very likely decide that this turns the software from freeware into shareware.  I think i would take issue with that and would probably argue that "nagware" shareware is designed to really nag and annoy the user while they use their software (making it largely a requirement to contribute to peacefully use the software) -- it's a hard argument to make.

And i suspect that most of our freeware site friends would disown us.  Your case is somewhat different because at that same time that you are "inflicting" non-contributor users with a nag on startup, you are providing the source code that would theoretically allow them to modify the code and remove it; and because you fall into the open source camp and not the freeware camp, you don't have the same kind of complaints and culture that objects so strenuously to the idea of a nag screen.  Which leads to the open source difference..

Open Source Difference

The most obvious difference is of course the fact that your programs are Open Source while our license-key applications (mostly mine) are closed source.  This is the part that I am very interested in because it's an issue I've struggled with.  I have some open source projects on DonationCoder but they don't really get donations and I don't really push for them on those tools, largely because I've not though it practical or worth the effort.

It's heartening for me to see independent open source projects like yours succeed in getting funding.  I have written before that i lay much of the blame at how hard this is on the open source *culture* which i view as tragically not putting any energy into cultivating a culture of users financially supporting open source projects.  To me it seems that open source funding is another example of a scenario where only a couple giant projects get all the funding, and where 3rd parties are figuring out how to scoop up all the potential available funding for a project, usually by providing pay-for-support of someone else's code.

To me the best future world we could move towards is one where digital content (music, software, art) is all free and generously supported by optional user-chosen donations.  But to do that it requires (in addition to easier and safer donation making) a shift in culture that emphasizes the importance of supporting such creators.  I find it tragic that the open source community didn't/doesn't embrace this as one of the core tenants of open source.

But back to the details that I think are interesting about your experience.. First, you talk about my concern with doing open source donationware-type software, the prospect of someone forking your software and starting a new project without the nag screens or where they put their own nag screen redirecting donations to them.  Basically you have said that it could happen but doesn't -- or hasn't so far -- perhaps primarily because it's too much effort for someone to do.  I think for the most part your analysis is probably correct -- that it's more of a theoretical problem than a practical one.  However, I do wonder whether the likelyhood of such a thing happening starts to go up dramatically as the popularity of a program increases, and as you have more developers.  So i really do still wonder about this fundamental forking problem when thinking about open source software as donationware.

Dealing with software projects where there are many developers:

I find myself drawn to your basic approach -- which is to say that author contributors keep track of their hours and payments get split among the unpaid hours of the developers.  However this is another case where i worry about your approach scaling up when you start to have many developers and perhaps some that disagree about direction. I do note that on your page listing developers that for all intents and purposes it's just you.  It may be a case where i'm worrying more about theoretical problems rather than technical ones, but on the other hand I am interested in finding a theoretically solution that would scale up and be something that could be advocated for large projects and which one could feel safe about it not becoming unmanageable.

More thoughts later..

12846

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by mouser on September 09, 2011, 03:03 PM »

Verry interesting.. time to go check out how the unpaid hours thing is tracked and how donations are divied up -- that has always been the part i've been unsure how to handle when you are talking about multiple authors of an open source project.

We need to support efforts like this 

12847

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 09, 2011, 12:11 PM »

Nope looks like a bug then -- maybe i just never made the latest version public..
Either way, I know the issue so look for an update this weekend where it will be fixed.

ps. thanks for the report 

12848

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 09, 2011, 10:25 AM »

which settings? This was pointed out to me before but i was sure i fixed it in most recent release.

12849

Screenshot Captor / Re: I can't download Screenshot Captor from work

« Last post by mouser on September 09, 2011, 10:02 AM »

Could this mean that www.websense.com' believe DonationCoder is a malicious site?

that's what it sounds like.. ugh another lazy company marking us as bad.. if you use websense it would help us to contact them and tell them to fix this and remove us.  i'll try to contact them too.

why they would block one page and not another, with the same basic file, is anyone's guess.

12850

Screenshot Captor / Re: Pdf files from scans

« Last post by mouser on September 09, 2011, 09:42 AM »

Hi henry --

Thanks for the kind words -- i am proud of the scanning functions in screenshot captor; i hope more people discover them -- i suspect most never do.

I'll take a look at the compression options for pdf saving and try to expose some in the screenshot captor options.  I suspect the difference in size comes down to that.