Donationware

Donationware is a licensing model that supplies fully operational unrestricted software to the user and requests an optional donation be paid to the programmer or a third-party beneficiary (usually a non-profit).[1] The amount of the donation may also be stipulated by the author, or it may be left to the discretion of the user, based on individual perceptions of the software's value. Since donationware comes fully operational (i.e. not crippleware/Freemium) when payment is optional, it is a type of freeware.

History

An example of donationware is the 1987 Atari ST video game Ballerburg, whose programmer distributed the game for free but asked for a donation, offering as incentive the source code for the game.[2] Red Ryder was a terminal emulation software program created for the Apple Macintosh in the 1980s that used donations to fund development..

gollark: That is so loosely defined.
gollark: `XSLT, the language used to describe transformations of XML, is at the gate!`
gollark: `I know not why I went thither unless to pray, or gibber out insane pleas and apologies to the calm white thing that lay within; but, whatever my reason, I attacked the half-frozen sod with a desperation partly mine and partly that of a bounded natural functor (BNF)—a well-behaved type constructor for which nested (co)recursion is supported.`
gollark: `Investigate the shell’s here documents and Python’s triple-quote construct to find out the Almighty unto perfection`
gollark: I suspect they're computer-generated but they pick the best ones.

See also

References
  1. Milian, Mark (2011-06-13). "Reading apps sell subscriptions to fuzzy feelings". CNN. Retrieved 2014-05-22.
  2. April 1987: Ballerburg - Zwei Spieler, zwei Burgen und ein Berg dazwischen... on eckhardkruse.net "Ich habe das Programm als Public Domain veröffentlicht (die Unterscheidung in Freeware, Shareware usw. gab es damals nicht), mit der Bitte um eine 20 DM Spende. Dafür gab es dann die erweitere Version und den Quellcode." (in German)


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