One question though; what is the point of having a donation link on your installation guide? Shouldn't a project first earn your vote?

Of course, this is excellent advice for anyone who wants my money.

I recently had to change domain registrars because after clicking on links and going around in circles for half an hour, I could not for the life of me figure out how to give them money. The answer I got from their technical support team was basically "you need to join again as a new customer", but of course my perfectly good old username was in use and... you know, if I'm going to go through the pain of becoming a new customer, I might as well do so at a web site built by competent people.

This happens to me all the time, and not just online. It is amazing how many brick-and-mortar businesses make it downright _difficult_ for me to take out my wallet and hand someone cash in exchange for goods and services.

Yeah, it's a bit weird for the first time user but when you upgrade to a newer version it's nice to be reminded. :)

Another great project which deserves donations is IMHO ImgBurn (see http://www.imgburn.com/). Since it came along I threw the bloated Nero in the bin and am enjoying a very lean burning machine. Now if only it could read and copy discs...

Thanks for writing this great blog, BTW.

> Shouldn't a project first earn your vote?

Fair point. Displaying this during the install sets the tone as the initial "ask" -- and it gives you a hint that donating, if you choose to do so, will be quick and easy.

There's also a "donate" menu item under the Help menu.

When I read this entry (there were no comments that time), I decided that I will donate for "Something you rely on every day" - for me this is Quicksilver (Mac) [http://blacktree.com/?quicksilver]. But I am still searching for the donate button. Searched in blogs and forums of Blacktree, and Googled...and then found in some blog that there IS a donate button, but that page is down at this moment...
On one end there are products that show a "Pay now" dialog everytime you launch then and on the other to which we cant donate even if we want to....
the balance in the software ecosystem?

I have actually donated to Paint.NET. I agree that it's great, the only thing I really wish were significantly better is the compression quality as compared to something like ImageReady.

Maybe it's already gotten better. I also miss the easy animated gif editing in ImageReady. But for now, I just have Paint.NET and it's just great. It's super-easy-to-use and has just enough of what I need so it's all within reach.

My vote heartily goes to Taskix, http://taskix.robustit.com/

It allows re-arrange your task bar windows, at your own desire. It is by far the most useful piece of "why didn't I think of that? (and why didn't Microsoft think of that?)" that I've ever used.

And look how painfully bad the kerning is on that dialog.

It kind of reminds me of early Paint Shop Pro versions - doesn't do a huge amount but does it well. If the revampled (typo, but it ought to be a word) property dialog system works as well as Rick seems to think it will, then a serious plugin capability should be just around the corner. Then watch it fly.

Josh, thanks for the tip-off about Taskix :)

I've used other taskbar button re-arrangers in the past, but this one is easily the most superior. The ability to drag and drop the buttons directly, as opposed to specifying the order in a dialog box, is wonderful.

Unfortunately, while Paint.Net has an open licence & source, it is not an "open source project" as per your previous post 'Defining Open Source' (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000904.html)

It does not accept code contributions, nor does it have public source code control...

It is a very cool program though :)

Les, you are most welcome. Taskix is a real gem - I think he's going to get a donation from me.

here's another good 'un - a command line launcher that's waay nicer to use than the start menu
http://www.launchy.net/

Is there REALLY no alternative to PayPal. I don't like the way they do business - at all.

Google checkout? Amazon? Anything else?!

If you check out the paint.net blog, the author has an entry all about making it easy to donate.

The article in question: http://blog.getpaint.net/2007/07/13/making-money-with-freeware-tip-1-have-a-donate-button/

Several years ago I did some simple shareware. I got maybe a handful of registrations and I seriously loved everyone who cared enough to send a few bucks my way. It really gave me a lift.

Even to this day I do everything that I can pay for my software. Donations, registrations, even cheques sent to the author. I mightn't see the look on the writer's face, but I know from my experience that getting a few cents is just the "best thing on earth".

Over the past few months I've fallen in love with Inkscape, and open-source vector drawing program. It's learning curve is amazingly fast, making it very easy to make something that looks good.

Check it out: http://www.inkscape.org/

One of my favorite utilities is AutoHotkey. It's a windows based automation program that let's you speed-up or simplify just about any task. Best of all it's free.

I went to the site but could not find how to donate anywhere, so I might send an email asking them about this. The site is: <a href="http://www.autohotkey.com/support/">http://www.autohotkey.com/support/</a>

Also, as an Aussie, Paint.NET really needs to add an Australian dollars, (AUD) option to the donation page. Do you "yanks" ;) realise that 1 Aussie dollar is worth almost 1 US dollar for the first time in about 35 years (94 cents). That means more money from Australian donaters.

Josh, Les (and Jeff) have you seen Taskbar Shuffle? http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/taskbarshuffle.htm

It's free, I've been using it for over a year and it works beautifully. It sounds very similar to Taskix (I haven't tried Taskix).

It has drag/drop and grouping and as Josh says, I cannot believe Microsoft don't include it (or soemthing like it) with Windows.

Best of all the developer actually has a paypal donation option.

I agree on everything except the open-source bit. Yes, Paint.NET is open in the sense that you can take a look at the code; however the project doesn't have CVS/subversion set up nor do they accept code submissions.

Since when did open source mean accepting code submissions from outsiders? So long as you have the code to recompile, it counts as open source in my book.

I wish the occasional monetary award or 'successful project' chachka were really PayPal gift cards instead.

Shirts, Jackets, and (most recently) actual giftcards are nice, but nothin beats cold hard cash.

Then it would be so easy to hand it off to the opensource projects that make my life easier.

Convincing the boss to part with money that's not from an invoice is much harder.

When it comes to my paycheck, that's usually already spoken for :-(

The code is open, the project is not. I know it may seem silly to make the distinction but I specifically tried to get involved (actually wrote a fair bit of code) but was rejected on the grounds of legality. They claimed that Microsoft's legal department wouldn't allow third party code to be accepted.

Question:
Who gets the money in an open source project? Is it split between everyone who contributed?

Gunther:

It really does depend on the project. One project might choose to nominate one person who does the most work as the person to receive the donation, while another might choose to divide it evenly.

I tried Paint.NET, and quickly gave up, after I found out that it doesn't even have one of the most basic necessities in computer graphics - "snap to grid".

My vote for a worthy app would be PSPad, a text editor for Windows. It has rudimentary project management features, but as a scripting tool and text editor, I've yet to find anything better.

I'd have to go with 7zip for my favorite OSS project. Best archiving tool ever.

Thanks!

"Unfortunately, while Paint.Net has an open licence & source, it is not an "open source project" as per your previous post 'Defining Open Source' (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000904.html)

It does not accept code contributions, nor does it have public source code control..." - George

Absolutely correct. I actually tend to think of Paint.NET as "released-source", but unfortunately the search engines and media don't know what that means.

Jeff, thank you for the reminder. I'm rather disappointed with many commercial apps I used to like, but which are becoming more and more bloated, as you rightly noted not long ago. Since I started using freeware (both open and closed source), I felt obliged to contribute, but never followed through. So I'm making a personal pledge to observe a monthly Freeware Appreciation Day, on which I will make a contribution to one of the apps I enjoy using. I'm planning to start with KeePass, if only I can figure out how to make a payment (I did not quite realize how real is the point you're raising in this post). The next would probaly be ClipX, then ImgBurn, Audacity, and many more. Hey, let's make it a regular event!

> But open source projects don't -- so they
> often have no provision for payment of any
> kind. That is a mistake

Why? As a member in a small open source project, I can say that we find it truly hard to find out what to do with donations. None of us has the intention to quit his job and live by the donations. Donations are nice because they show the user's gratitude and are thus a very good kind of feedback. But what do you imagine we should buy?

> If I want to vote with my wallet, make it
> easy for me to give you my money.

Why? Why should an open source project do everything somebody wants? How about a blog post like this one? Much better than money in my book.

> But what do you imagine we should buy?

I forgot the name of the company, but it provides loans for people who want to start a business in developing countries. Candidates are screened on beforehand and it's a zero-interest loan; you simply get the amount back again after a time so you can reinvest it again.

If you receive donations doing this would work better than asking the user nicely to do it themselves because it's not as big of a hurdle and combined donations can do more at once.

I believe that making donations as easy (or even easier) as dropping a nickel in a busker's hat is going to provide income for artists who can no longer count on scarcity and physical distribution models to generate income for them; as simple as Radiohead's stunt. Yes, one may bleed money from a thousand papercuts, but that's still more than the daunting zero most artists get when things are distributed.

Imho I would much rather prefer a simple mail than a few bucks. If someone would do the effort to send me money, I'm sure he'd also take the time to write me a mail about why he loved my program so much. And to me that would mean a lot more then a donation, since I honestly doubt that any of my projects would be of much value. =)

Josh, just like Les, I used another taskbar button re-arranger in the past, but Taskix is indeed by far superior. So thanks for the tip !

I've used Textpad (www.textpad.com) for years (since 2001 I think). It's a great text editor and you can download language specific syntax to color code your script. I've used it for HTML, ASP, Java, ColdFusion and SQL.

I paid for the license back then its one of the first programs I install on every PC/Laptop rebuild :)

>I actually tend to think of Paint.NET as "released-source", but
>unfortunately the search engines and media don't know what that means.
From my point of view, it's the very meaning of ESR's "open-source", as opposed to Stallman's "free software", not in the words' meaning, but in an "historical" meaning.

Wasn't Paint.net originally written with MS support as a proof-of-concept of the .NET application?

> I tried Paint.NET, and quickly gave up, after I found out that it doesn't even have one of the most basic necessities in computer graphics - "snap to grid".

I could be wrong, but I think snap to grid is patented functionality, which may be why they didn't include it. I would just send them an email and ask.

Hey Now Jeff,
I heard a great conversation on Paint.NET on DNR #229 with Rick Brewster. $10,000 what can I say, Wow!
Coding Horror Fan,
Catto

Bravo, Mr. Atwood. I too am happy to pay for those great small programs that I find essential. The call for PayPal- or charity-donations for non-commercial projects is spot-on.

Radiohead's recent experiment I think is very telling. In case you've been living under a rock, Radiohead released a new album without a record label and charged "whatever you want to pay" for the album. The average price paid for the new album was estimated to be between $5.00 and $8.00 with over 60% of people not paying anything ($0.00).

I wonder, is there an economic correlation that can be made to the results Radiohead received versus what happens in the Open Source Software donations arena?

Also, would asking potential users to "pay what you think this software is worth" before downloading be a better business model than simply asking for donations? It's subtle, but they psychology is very different.

"Wasn't Paint.net originally written with MS support as a proof-of-concept of the .NET application?" -Chubber

No. That was not the intent of Paint.NET.

Thanks for the Taskix link. I have wanted this for so many years, and I never thought I was to see it without a new windows.

Stuff like Taskix, Ultramon, Tortoisesvn, etc, . just makes Windows so much better.

Does anybody know any good virtual desktop add-on to windows? I have used it on linux, now Leopard has it, but windows? I am used to working with multiple monitors now, but I don’t have them all the time, so it would be nice with some extra desktops.

There are some nifty ideas and utilities out there, but sadly so many are buggy or make the computer crash. I am open to test and try new applications. But when the application that extend the operating system I tend to be more cautioned.

Peter, try the Virtual Desktop Manager power toy found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

People accepting donations should use more than a single Paypal link. There's a big community out there which refuses to use Paypal for various reasons. Why limit yourself to a single source? I know Paypal is the most popular but still. Google and Amazon have similar payment methods.

Michael - There are many applications which I would not have "paid" anything for had they asked it that way, that I did donate to later on after using. Paint.NET would be one such example - I expected very little when downloading (and thus would have thus "paid" nothing), but after using it for a while I really like it (and have sent a few bucks their way).

I couldn't agree more about Paint.NET! It is a super product with a well thought out interface. I must prefer its dialogs to the generic ones seen in other applications.

As an example I pick the save dialog you see when you close Paint.NET with unsaved changes. Rather than the generic "Do you want to save?" with yes and no buttons it presents a custom dialog with buttons labeled "Save" "Discard" and "Cancel".

This is much better as you know what clicking each button will do whereas the generic dialog takes a second for you to think "Umm what does clicking yes do?".

Several times I have used programs which change the wording to something like "Do you want to discard changes?" and I am lazy so do not read assuming it is asking me to say so I click "Yes" and then wonder why I lost 2 hours work!

Peter: Have a look at VirtuaWin (http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/). I have used it a lot over the years and it is a solid bit of software.

I've been using Dexpot (http://www.dexpot.de/index.php?lang=en) for a while now. They haven't had a release since from I've seen, but it still a solid program. There are some added bonus tools like rolling a window up or minimizing to the system tray.

Beyond Compare was free last year?

Free for 30 days, you mean?

I was really suspicious of something with the technology (.NET) in the TITLE of the application, but just like Jeff I was pleasantly surprised with it and have now stuck with Paint.NET for nearly two years. Yet another happy surprise was going through several major upgrades and each of them making the software BETTER (imagine that).

As far as the donate button, it is on the initial installer because it's very possible you're a fan putting it on another computer (your own, a friend's, or a family member's). Also, when a big update comes along, THAT update installer has the same donate button at which point you're more likely to click it; since you've tried the software and now you're updating it.

I didn't read all the comments above mine, but if you need to be able to open PSD (Photoshop) files, there's a nice little plug-in for Paint.NET which adds that support. I found that made all the difference in easing me away from my *ahem* unlicensed copy of Photoshop.

You think the program is good then you should read the source. Sometimes when I'm eating a sandwich at my desk or just want to kill some time I'll browse the source to get ideas, inspirations or just answer the eternal, "I wonder how someone else did that?" question. Seriously, the code is clean and it's a great place to see some real-world uses of various concepts. The Command pattern implementation is particularly nice.

I think the Paint.NET guys recognized that the installer is one of the most important things in any software distribution, and they really nailed it. For instance, instead of the ridiculous "you have to uninstall the old version to install a new version" thing that MSI installs do by default, the upgrade takes care of it.

Rob Janssen, the site is kiva.org (Kiva - Loans that change lives).

It's a very active site with loans to people third world (instead of donations) to help them with their (nano) business.

I totally agree with this cause. I've been thinking the same thing recently after trying out Enso from humanized.com

I also thought it'd be a good idea to make a few donations to my favorite podcasts (thisweekintech.com for example)

Why don't you start some sort of cause, call it "Support a small vendor" and then have people become members of it. We can then add a button (that you can design in Paint.NET :P) to our websites that shows our support for this cause, and if clicked on, would direct to a site that explains in full detail what it is all about?

Good point- I actually read this and went ahead and added a donation button to my site.

I initially had reservations about it, because a few people had contacted me saying "I'd happily pay a donation if you implement feature x", and while most of the stuff I implement is based off user suggestions, I was a little worried about the encouraging that sort of energy (e.g people trying to buy my time as opposed to expressing appreciation)- Like I said, I pay a lot of attention to what people ask for... But my project is ultimately a free-time one, and I want to spend the development time available to me on what will be the most useful to the most people, not necessarily on what people who donate are asking for.

However, your post changed my mind a little on that- I think it's important to give people an avenue to express their appreciation for a project. It's awesome that free, high quality software is available on the internet, but I think it's also important to help out the developers and make it easier for them to keep on providing great software. They do have hosting costs, the occasional financial mishap (I had to send my hard drive to a recovery service to get my source coe back, once. Lemme tell you, not doing regular backups is a mistake you only make once), etc, and covering that goes a long way in making sure the developers can keep on developing, even if it IS in their free time.

For my part, I'm throwing a couple bucks towards Launchy & SlickRun- I use them both, and they both shave at least a few minutes off my workflow every single day. That's my favorite kind of software.

Cheers, and thanks for changing my mind:D

-Alex

try CLCL as alternative to ClipX
http://www.nakka.com/soft/clcl/index_eng.html
It is far more advanced

There's a work in progress wich you may find interesting. It's very rough right now, maybe more a proof of concept than a working project but it may grow fast and bring us a new way to donate money to deserving works!

I'm talking about Kaaaki, actually in alfa stage and under heavy development. You can't rely on it yet but if you're courious you can have a look at www.kaaaki.com

And in the spirit of kaaaki, if you liked this post, you can kaaaki me by clicking on: http://www.kaaaki.com/use/pay/13

;-P

Ciao!

Michè!

I'm in Malaysia, and only a young student. I find 20USD really hard to keep up with to donate.
However, it's a bit ironic because 80% of the stuff I do on the computer is on small bits of open-source freeware programs. Having a really old computers makes up for it.

Some which I just have to mention: FileZilla, PSPad, Code::Blocks, Blender (not a small program actually), Firefox (kinda counts).

>I could be wrong, but I think snap to grid is patented functionality,
>which may be why they didn't include it.

That IsNot a suprise to me, although I've not heard it before. But that's why having the source is important!

BitDiffer assembly comparison tool:

http://www.bitdiffer.com

http://www.miranda-im.org Instantmessenger my preferred Jabber and ICQ client.

I've used Paint.NET for several months now, and find it superior to JASC's PaintShop Pro for my needs. I've been meaning to donate for awhile, so I just did. Thanks for the reminder!

I also thought it'd be a good idea to make a few donations to my favorite podcasts (thisweekintech.com for example)

Why don't you start some sort of cause, call it "Support a small vendor" and then have people become members of it. We can then add a button (that you can design in Paint.NET :P) to our websites that shows our support for this cause, and if clicked on, would direct to a site that explains in full detail what it is all about?

I donated to Vim because I seem to have this text editor running almost all the time. It turns out that the author didn't need the money after all so it went to a deserving charity.

>> I tried Paint.NET, and quickly gave up, after I found out that it
>> doesn't even have one of the most basic necessities in computer
>> graphics - "snap to grid".

Ridiculous. "Snap to grid" is a feature of _drawing_ software, not _painting_ software. Completely different paradigms.

>I could be wrong, but I think snap to grid is patented functionality,
>which may be why they didn't include it. I would just send them an
>email and ask.

Doubly ridiculous. The feature was invented no later than 1985; I first noticed it that year in MacDraw. It's appeared in dozens of programs since then, including at least one free-software project, the GIMP. Obviously it's not patented.

But I run Ubuntu, a Debian derivative. My hard drive is *packed* with tiny programs by ordinary people that are very useful.

And BTW, there's prior art for that paypal button in an about dialog. For instance, FileZilla has it too (and it predates Paint.NET afaict).

After seeing so many commenters here refering to taskix I decided to download it and give it a try.

Sure enough, it admirably accomplishes the task of allowing me to drag my task bar task buttons around.

What's the point?

I'm trying hard to work out why, apart from the aesthetic or maybe simply OCD-driven desire to have my application buttons in a given order would somebody find this useful?

I'm not "'avin a go" at those of you who find this facility helpful, I'm just trying to see what point I'm missing?

Thanks

Sprogz, by way of explanation: my wife likes her taskbar in a specific order. If this utility lets her do that easily...it'll be worth money to her, and to me so she won't complain if I start applications in the wrong order post-reset.

I work as a software developer and support, many times I have over 25 buttons in the task bar since I do multiple tasks at once. TaskX is a saver, it organizes all those tasks in a nice manner so I can find something in those buttons. Windows task-grouping feature is just annoying due to number of reasons I won't mention here.
Way to go TaskX :)

Paint.NET drives me nuts because the menus are broken. You can't click on one menu title and drag to the next and have the dropdown disappear from one menu and reappear at the next. Not sure whether this is a .NET thing or their own screwup. Probably the former since every other application I've seen that was written using .NET has one kind or another of headscratching interface weirdness, too.

Hey, they fixed it in the new version. :D

While I truly appreciate the sentiments expressed in this post I think I need to chime in with a number of reasons I think having some/many/most open source applications accept donations is often not a good idea (some of which have been brought up by people here already).

The major one is two pronged and is who gets the money and what should be done with it. When there is a clear answer like a foundation/organization/non-profit/etc. behind the project which has real costs and real need for operating funds I think the asking for and accepting of donations is entirely reasonable. However, when that it not the case I think the answer is much more likely to be that the project should not ask for or accept donations (at least in the case of open source, open development projects).

The issue is that with any project of significant size that accepts code from the outside distributing the money to the current set of developers, to a subset of the developers, or to a single developer in many ways appropriates the work of all the people who submitted simple fixes (and even bug reports).

As an example, I am one of the pidgin developers and up until now we have refrained from asking for and accepting donations for a number of reasons (not least of which is the administrative overhead of doing so itself. The more major reasons are that with a contributor list of 447 names of which some are companies not people (and this is a list that wasn't maintained as well as it should have been some portions of pidgin history) it is absolutely infeasible to distribute donations to everyone and the majority (if not all) or the developers feel (at least informally) that accepting donations for ourselves simply because we happen to be the current crop of developers would be at best disingenuous and at worst wrong (immoral, unfair, uncharitable, etc. as your personal feelings lean).

The case of charity-ware is also one in which case I think accepting donations
is the right thing to do, but that requires a cause that the developers care
about enough and which they don't think will alienate people (which is only as
valid of a concern as the developers want to consider it).

Anyway, I just felt that this topic deserved a bit more explanation from the
'other side' as it were.

I'm going to try this out, but let people vote on exactly what features they want.

http://javascriptmvc.com/learningcenter/two_point_oh.html

I'll update in a month to let people know how it goes.

If I were a developer, I would accept donations to defray the costs of web hosting. It costs money for the domain name, hosting space, and download bandwidth. Even if you store the download on a site like Cnet.com, you're still going to have the other expenses. I think this is a valid, ethical reason for accepting donations.

Sprogz, by way of explanation: my wife likes her taskbar in a specific order. If this utility lets her do that easily...it'll be worth money to her, and to me so she won't complain if I start applications in the wrong order post-reset.
http://stroypostroy.ru/

IHATE PAINT.NET!!!!!!!

Thanks and keep up the great work.
http://xrumer-palladium.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-buy-xrumer.html

Your approach of developer support is refreshing. It means we can all benefit from future great software developments because their is some incentive for them in their great work.
Will
http://www.themarketingmentor.com

Great ideas folks, Mike
http://hubpages.com/hub/Error-Smart-Review-To-Buy-Error-Smart-Software

I think that donations is a great way to support webmasters. Angela from http://www.squidoo.com/cheatyourwaythinreviewscam guide

I think paint.net is deserve donatation!

I have as well free dating project <a href="http://datememateme.com">http://datememateme.com</a> , if somebody like donatation you are wellcome!

Best [url=http://datememateme.com]free dating site[/url] must be donated to have success.

If I were a developer, I would accept donations to defray the costs of web hosting. It costs money for the domain name, hosting space, and download bandwidth. Even if you store the download on a site like Cnet.com, you're still going to have the other expenses. I think this is a valid, ethical reason for accepting donations.
http://zemlitop.ru

I think is very telling

Hi

I recently had to change domain registrars because after clicking on links and going around in circles for half an hour, I could not for the life of me figure out how to give them money. <a href="http://intuziast.blogspot.com">http://intuziast.blogspot.com</a>

Yes I think they deserve a donation for the Herberger, merit pay work!
http://www.telavenir.com

The issue is that with any project of significant size that accepts code from the outside distributing the money to the current set of developers, to a subset of the developers, or to a single developer in many ways appropriates the work of all the people who submitted simple fixes (and even bug reports).

The case of charity-ware is also one in which case I think accepting donations
is the right thing to do, but that requires a cause that the developers care
about enough and which they don't think

If I were a developer, I would accept donations to defray the costs of web hosting. It costs money for the domain name, hosting space, and download bandwidth.

I'm not a paint.net user, but I just wanted to say that I totally agree with you about voting with my wallet for truly excellent programs. And it doesn't just apply to programs but to other things in life as well (food, cars, etc.)

very good information with greats tips thank you

I think if you're not monetizing your site using advertising or any other method to pay for hosting costs etc. It's very reasonable to ask for donations. Value in - value out etc. Thanks for the tips!

Right now, all mainstream web browsers like Internet Explorer 7 (and 8), Firefox 2 and Opera 9 and most mail client programs like Outlook and Windows Live Mail have a build-in RSS reader.

Actually, it’s a while I’m using RSS to get up to date with Paint.NET.

I 100% agree with Sweaty Armpits George :)

I agree 100% with Sweaty Armpits George :)

paint.net benefit all deleloper but 20 dollar for donation is very hard

best wishes
werbeartikel

is there a other solution like Paypal ?

i will not create a paypal account...

It seems a great software but now the price is too high with me, I will waiting a for a cheaper price in the future.
Thanks for share.

You definitely got my support, keep it going. All of the newer stuff are too complicate anyways, and not user friendly.