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Question to Everyone: Setting aside the technical meaning, does Donationware...

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vlastimil:
I think, "Pay what you want" implies a kind of business relationship. Once someone pays, they become a customer and they expect to be treated like that. Customers have rights, expectations, needs...

"Donationware" feels more like, well, a charity collecting donations. The donors contribute, because they believe in the cause.

kyrathaba:
To me, "pay what you want" carries no stronger impact that "donationware".  I see "pay what you want" and think, Hmm, I think I want to pay nothing...

I think you either outright charge for your software, or accept that donations are going to be few and far between.

nudone:
To me, "pay what you want" carries no stronger impact that "donationware".  I see "pay what you want" and think, Hmm, I think I want to pay nothing...

I think you either outright charge for your software, or accept that donations are going to be few and far between.
-kyrathaba (September 25, 2011, 08:36 AM)
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Yep. No amount of effort is going to make "pay what you like" or "donationware" into the magical incantations that's still being strived for.

wraith808:
I think it depends on the implementation.  Much "Donationware" is just download it, use it, and if in the future you want to pay, give what you want.  Some "Pay What You Want" software involves the act of going through a payment, even if its zero, in order to get full functionality, or non-time limited functionality.  It's like "Shareware", but the registration just gives you the option of what to pay.  The lack of a common set of definitions for the terms makes defining what fits in what categories pretty difficult.

Paul Keith:
The starting point for answering this question is that there is no standardized definition of these terms, so any answer to your question is going to be just one person's opinion.

I think if one wanted to come up with a useful distinction from the terms, "pay what you want" implies that you MUST pay something.  Whereas donationware seems to entertain the possibility that users may choose to donate nothing.-mouser (September 25, 2011, 04:09 AM)
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Yep. This thread is exactly to get opinions. I don't see what's wrong with this considering the power of words.

Example: wraith808, just hinted that it may not be the words at all but the registration. The opinion could then become a usability test (for those who can pull that thing of) in the future

Yep. No amount of effort is going to make "pay what you like" or "donationware" into the magical incantations that's still being strived for.-nudone (September 25, 2011, 09:00 AM)
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I think that depends on magical. People want to consider Apple magical for example and yet there were many magical concepts like Yahoo and MySpace that were toppled down by the magical Google and Facebook. There just hasn't been as magical of a white magic as Apple and of course it wasn't until Grand Mage Steve Jobs got fired that the magic seemed to be starting to lose it's luster until his return and eventual retirement.

I think magic happens when people tests words, usability, concepts and dig further into where that magic is coming from. Not just through answers but execution. The sage Orwell once warned that the dark arts called propaganda would be wielding the magic called "Politics in the English Language" and every so often whether it's a personal or major disaster, we see a burst of magical phenomena where people donate and then like a rare natural phenomenon they go back to their extraordinary lives.

For my own bias though, I think magical education is more important than magical discovery. If people can be convinced that there's a Law of Attraction, I'd like to find out if we can find a way to convince people of a Law of Smart and Strategic Donations that actually matter.

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