Brash>>
Quote:
My door is always open to suggestions for doing something better, so what would you suggest?
The term Donate is missleading and somewhat more complex, in real terms than has been outlined here. To 'Donate' implies an invitation give an unspecified amount of money or other tender, without any obligation for contractual exchange of goods or services.
This is not the case here.
The only similarity is the clause 'unspecified amount'
There
is an implied contractual agreement here, that is 'you can only get the module, if you give some (unspecified) money.
Pure an simple, it's a contract, in the most basic of terms.
Most people expect a donation to be voluntary and not tied contactually to any outcome. If Donation becomes a euphomism for puchase, this is regarded as a marketing ploy called 'soft selling' used to lessen the negative effect of a sale.
To be constructive: and answer Brash's comment above.
I think developers should have every opportunity to 'sell' their products, if they calculate this is the best way to fund their development. But lets not try and 'soft sell' and let's drop the word donation.
I suggest a developer operates a 2 tier release:
1- A purchased product that carries an extra value componant, maybe even an extra feature. The extra value will also include priority product support, Good documentation, access to automatic free updates, derestriction of linkbacks, etc.
2- A free product that is released without any of the above in point 1- It has zero developer support (except maybe through peer users) It carries an obligatory linkback to the developers site. There is no notifications of updates and improvements, etc.
None of this is new stuff and is common in software development, but maybe we should take a fresh look at how to do it within the GPL.