For Developers: Do Donations Make a Difference?

[zridling]

[Veign]: MAYBE WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE IS TO CREATE A PAGE WHERE USERS REGISTER AND THEN 'DONATE' IN ONE OF THREE WAYS: MONETARY VALUE, BUG REPORT (SOMETHING NOT ALREADY ON A BUG LIST), OR FEATURE / IDEA REQUEST. ACTUALLY LETS ADD A FORTH: REVIEW. A REVIEW FOR ME CARRIES ALOT OF WEIGHT ON SOME OF THE DOWNLOAD SITES TO INFLUENCE A NEW USER TO DOWNLOAD AND TRY THE APPLICATION.... THIS WOULD ALLOW A USER, ANY USER HAVE THE CAPABILITY TO REGISTER THE APPLICATION WITH LITTLE OR NO OUT-OF-POCKET. THE USER GETS THE APPLICATION AND I, AS THE DEVELOPER, RECEIVE SOMETHING OF VALUE.

You may be onto something there. My concern as a user is to always have a viable freeware/OS alternative to shareware and commercial apps. But to sustain good freeware, in the end, the developer must see some return on their time/sweat investment. Sure, the 13-year old can't whip out a credit card, but he can contribute in measurable ways to ensure the program's progress.

[mouser]

that's pretty much how we do things here, but informally.  anyone who helps out significantly in identifying bugs or making suggestions gets upgraded to honorary membership.

reviews are v important - but i'd be a litte wary of offering licenses in return for positive reviews, it might end up making people a little wary of the reviews of your program.

[Veign]

That's a good point mouser. 

I am working on the next release of Link200 which cleans IE favorites.  The next version will include a cleaner for FireFox too.  This application will be Donationware and I will be working on a new system for Veign to register the product.

Going to try and figure out a method so that anyone that wants the application can get it and I receive something of value in return...

And in response about underperforming applications:  My rule of thumb when creating an application is "Eat your own dogfood" so I use all applications I release.  Even if its underperforming in the public I still would update it as I use it. 

My philosphy has been create an application out of need and release it to the public as they may also have a need for it.  Creating the application lets me control the features.  This way I get an application exactly how I want or think it should function.

[rjbull]

Mouser,

Are you looking to list donationware?  Because I just spotted another one:

"Zhorn Software   http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/

Stickies is a PC utility I wrote to try to cut down on the number of Post-It® notes I was leaving stuck to my monitor. It is a computerised version of those notes.

The design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores all information in a single text-based ini file. "

[Carol Haynes]

Hey - me like them thar stickies ...

They are particularly good on a network where you can post a sticky on a friends dest to say "Don't forget to make Carol a coffee"

Top fun, and potentially useful when the novelty wears off 

[mouser]

hi rj.
we aren't actually looking to "list" donationware, but we are interested in providing a home for donationware autors who can't find a home.  if you or anyone else is interested in writing donationware and don't have a home for it, we would be happy to provide some web space for you.

[Matteo]

I began accepting donations for ZipGenius just because many people asked to fo that. I got many e-mails from happy users that asked me how to contribute to the development and I activates a PayPal account just to receive these donations.
ZipGenius basically is freeware and I let people free to donate or not, but any donation will help me to maintain the website online and to replace old hardware parts on my development machine; in fact, last time I bought a 200 GB Maxtor HD that I am using to test ZG features on huge files, each sized over 10 Gb.

Accepting donation makes developers happy - as many of you told before - because they  understand that someone is enjoying what they have created.

[Veign]

Even after all the bad with that experience I just can't let the application go.  I will be entering the development phase of v3.0 within the next couple of months and will be rethinking the shareware idea when I release it...

-Veign (September 05, 2005, 10:16 PM)

So frustrating and the reason why I need to do something different and possibly move totally away from Shareware. 

Just found out today that my latest version of Cfont Pro has a serial code floating around on blogs.  They are starting to hit the website hard.  So far hit me for about 5Gig and will be around 10Gig by days end.  Hopefully this will decreaseover the next couple of days...

Its too bad I can't discuss measures I am taking to help protect the application because that would defeat it.  I may post a blog message about general things that can be done to help protect software but not sure if I even want to make that public.

[mouser]

just be careful about going overboard veign -
i hear developer's sometimes talk about booby trapping their programs to erase files on the users computer, or make the program behave erratically.  these can backfire on a developer by causing real anger from people who might have been potential customers, and can make people believe your program is buggy and thus not worth purchase.

my thoughts are like this:
the best protection against piracy is complicated issue.
but the best protection against losing money to piracy is much simpler matter. most people who pirate stuff are probably never going to buy it no matter what; some proportion can be convinced to donate/buy if they like it and see worth in it.  aim for them.  regular improvements, good tech support, etc.
just my current thoughts - i'm not saying that a medium level protection might not serve to encourage people to purchase programs, just that focusing on protection is probably focusing on the wrong sliver of potential customers, and the time might be better spent addressing the needs of other users.

the story with ultraedit is a good example; they moved to using Armadillo protection for exactly 1 release version - they completlly alienated their loyal customers with the slowdowns in startup.  next version it was gone, and everything went back to normal - i guess they decided that the piracy was probably just spreading the market share and any improvement in converting sales with better protection was causing a much worse damage in public relations, etc.

just some thoughts, take them for what they're worth.

[AbteriX]

...
Stickies is a PC utility I wrote

-rjbull (September 07, 2005, 10:25 AM)

What ? 

YOU wrote Stickies ? May i take the change to thank you for that great tool?
I'd uses ATNotes but i discovered Stickies the last weeks and like it because his quick alarm settings.
I looked all around for a nice lean alarm clock (to allert me to change the ISP)
 and found stickies really nifty at the end.
So i will wrote you and improvement wish soon

[Carol Haynes]

How about having a secure download page where the serial has to be entered to get the download, then only codes you have issued could work.

You can't stop what's out there but you can stop people downloading from your site, and make future editions more secure.

[Veign]

just be careful about going overboard veign -
i hear developer's sometimes talk about booby trapping their programs to erase files on the users computer, or make the program behave erratically.  these can backfire on a developer by causing real anger from people who might have been potential customers, and can make people believe your program is buggy and thus not worth purchase.

-mouser (September 07, 2005, 04:08 PM)

I would never do this.  I gather no information and would never mess with the host computer in anyway (unless the application is designed to specifically do so)

What I meant is I have protection things in place (active and passive) that do not affect the applications performance or affect users in any way, shape or form.  No user would know what is being done and no information is pulled from their system or sent to me in anyway.

Sample of what I do;
How to protect better:
http://www.searchlor...rg/protec/protec.htm

I just take the above further to try and stay ahead.  Its an uphill battle at times (usually around new releases) but it gives me some peace of mind.

I know in the end if someone wants my application for free they will get it.  I just try and prevent the majority and not the few skilled, determined people from getting the application for free.

[mouser]

that makes a lot of sense to me and seems quite sensible.

[Veign]

How about having a secure download page where the serial has to be entered to get the download, then only codes you have issued could work.

You can't stop what's out there but you can stop people downloading from your site, and make future editions more secure.

-CarolHaynes (September 07, 2005, 04:19 PM)

Good idea but as a shareware application I want people to try-before-buy.

Its a hard balance of making it easy and painless for honest users and protecting against the people looking for free software.

What I used to have is an ASP page that handled a redirect to the file.  The page compared the referrer to a list of blacklisted domains and if all passed I streamed the file to the browser.  The problem with this is my current host does not allow custom error pages located in the root web folder and was absorbing some information from the referrer.

[Carol Haynes]

Have a try before by that isn't unlockable and has a key feature limited in scope (making sure it is actually differently coded so that it can't be hacked and replaced). Final versions would have to be downloaded and installed over the top. PITA but it would stop all but the hard core rip offs.

It would also save your bandwidth so that any illegal copies can be paid for by someone else.

You may want to consider an automatic update check too which would check for invalid registrations and politely warn the user that they are using an illegal copy.

[Veign]

That gives me something to think about...

A limited version download and once registered download the full version.

I am going to give this some serious thought for the v3.0 release..

Thanx for the ideas.

[rjbull]

...
Stickies is a PC utility I wrote

-rjbull (September 07, 2005, 10:25 AM)

What ? 

YOU wrote Stickies ? May i take the change to thank you for that great tool?

-Stefan (September 07, 2005, 04:16 PM)

Stefan,

Sorry, wasn't me... I can see how I caused confusion.    I clip-and-pasted a bit from his Web page, using quote marks round the quote, but I should have thought to edit it.  You need to thank Tom Revell of Zhorn Software, he's the author.  I e-mailed him a link to this thread but don't know if he's taken it up.

Again, deep apologies... 

[Edvard]

Anybody heard of this idea (copy\pasted from a maillist)

The way most bounty setups work is that you post a bounty and specify what
work you want done. Others wanting the same work done will add to the bounty
until someone acomplishes it.

and take a looka here...

http://www.markshutt...orth.com/bounty.html

Bountyware? Hmmm...

[mouser]

that looks quite interesting.