DonationCoder.com is a website hosting a community of programmers and software fans. It supports a donation-based model to organize and finance software development, and is one example of
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). The amount of the donation may also ...
.
The community develops and finances its own free software, software reviews,
podcasts, and a diverse
programming school. Funding is accomplished using a grant-like system of
micro-donations. All donors to the site receive their donation back as ''DonationCredits'' which they can then trade amongst themselves to support different projects and reward activities contributing to the community. All members are considered equal and simply donate an amount they feel comfortable with.
The community also fosters collaboration on free services,
programming contests, and
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
projects.
The site has an active forum which focuses on developments in
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
. DonationCoder has been recognized by
Lifehacker,
Ghacks and other well-known and reputable blogs for its adherence to the principles of
freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...
and
open source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Open ...
. Many well-regarded utilities have been produced by the coders that frequent DonationCoder.com, especially during the New Apps for the annual New Year (N.A.N.Y.) event and competitions.
Most of the software developed and discussed on the site are for
Microsoft Windows, even though the developments in other
platforms are followed.
See also
*
Gift economy
*
Participatory organization
A participatory organization is an organization which is built based on public participation rather than their contract obligations.
Types
Different types of participatory organizations are possible including production companies, membership orga ...
*
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). The amount of the donation may also ...
References
External links
*{{official website, http://DonationCoder.com
DonationCoder Software BlogDonationCoder Forum
describing the experience of this website's first year
Lifehacker.com Column on DonationCodergHacks.net Column on DonationCoder
Community websites
Knowledge markets