Donateware (or donationware) is a form of software distribution. Distributed as freeware, donateware stipulates that the user must donate to a charitable cause in order to "register" the software. Sometimes the author of the program stipulates which charity the user must donate to, sometimes they just suggest one, and sometimes the author leaves the choice up to the user. Normally the user does not need to contact the author with any information in order to "register" their program—it is implicit with the donation (registering does not "unlock" any extra features). The donation stipulation is little more than a gimmick since the program's author cannot verify whether or not the user made any such donation. Therefore, donateware can be thought of as "freeware with a reminder to be charitable." A screenshot of a computer software. ... Freeware (also called gratis software or free as in beer software) is computer software which is made available free of charge and is not free to be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed. ... Allegorical personification of Charity as a mother with three infants by Anthony van Dyck Charity is a term in Christian theology (one of the three theological virtues), meaning loving kindness towards others; it is held to be the ultimate perfection of the human spirit, because it is said to both...

Predictably, this form of software distribution is very uncommon. One of the early versions of donateware was Screenpeace, a screen saver for Microsoft Windows 3.0. The suggested charity was Greenpeace, though any other charity qualified. A screensaver is a computer program originally designed to conserve the image quality of computer displays by blanking the screen or filling them with moving images or patterns when the computers are not in use. ... The Windows 3. ... Greenpeace protest in Brasília, Brazil. ...

A variation of Donateware is where the author requests user donation to a designated charity to legally use the software after a trial period. After verification of the donation, author sends user a registration code to disable popup reminder messages. A current example is MJ's CD Archiver, a file archiver for Microsoft Windows/Linux/Mac OS X. The suggested charity is NACEF, a USA-registered charity for China's Project Hope. Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. ... Unix systems filiation. ... Mac OS X (pronounced Mac OS Ten) is the latest version of the Macintosh operating system, and is designed and developed by Apple Computer to run on their Macintosh line of personal computers. ...

Another form of Donationware is when the author makes the software fully functional and free but request (sometimes loudly) that you really should donate to the software creator whatever you feel is proper. Spybot falls under this category. Spybot - Search & Destroy 1. ...

Donateware