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Amazing software tip: Pay free software developers to get stuff fixed!
If you've read my review of WriteMonkey, you know how much I love this simple-looking, yet very powerful, full-screen editor. In fact, I use WriteMonkey for all of my Download Squad posts. I find it much easier to focus when I have just my text in front of me, in monospaced font, with no distracting chrome.
I guess you can imagine the disappointment I felt when WriteMonkey stopped working for me one day. To be honest, it didn't just stop working; I needed to use my text files along with some scripts, and it simply didn't work. The scripts would run fine with files from other text editors but would choke on anything that I did with WriteMonkey.
I wrote Iztok, WriteMonkey's developer. I sent him a file that I got from WriteMonkey and one that I got from another text editor. Iztok soon figured out that the WriteMonkey file was in Unicode, while the file from the other text editor was in ANSI.
Okay, ... so then I knew why it wasn't working. The problem was that WriteMonkey made some assumptions about file encoding, and those assumptions did not work out in my case. Then, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of needing a feature for a program that I really like; WriteMonkey is freeware, though, so I never paid for it.
The solution was obvious: donate. Iztok was very nice about the whole thing; he created a fix for me and sent me an exclusive preview build so I could test it. In fact, he even refused to tell me how much money he wanted for his time -- he said it was a donation and should be completely voluntary.
Once I had a working fix, I donated a sum that seemed like a reasonable exchange for the personal support I had received. Now, there is a new feature in WriteMonkey (forced default encoding).
The point here is that I am quite sure I would not have gotten the same personal treatment from a large company, and while Iztok never insisted on any form of payment, I think paying for what you get makes a huge difference for both sides.
So, the next time some problem with a freeware product is driving you crazy, try writing the developer, and consider donating for their time. The results can be quite satisfying.
Comments
11
Subscribe to commentsKenn.keeperJun 25th 2010 12:39PM
Just an observation,,,,,,,What is this doing here..............
plasmasheepJun 25th 2010 11:59AM
Or, if the project in question is FOSS, you can make the fix yourself and submit a patch.
AdamJun 25th 2010 1:01PM
The devs behind ComicPress (a wordpress extension/plugin) are similarly good and ask only for donations as well. Their stuff is well worth it. Almost any webcomic you've read runs on CP.
Kenn.keeperJun 25th 2010 12:42PM
RE; My above post #2, Ok,,,,there was just an advertisement for some overseas knock-off crap in here when I first viewed this post and now gone...
Lonnie McClureJun 25th 2010 12:49PM
For spam, just click the grey "!" button to report the comment.
moragosJun 25th 2010 4:04PM
I think Free OpenSource software deserves a lot more donations than we give them. Those people contribute their time and money, and I fear that one day it will just stop because they will be unable to fund it anymore.
JayenkaiJun 25th 2010 5:13PM
People who "Fund" their own software, do so because they can afford to do it, and more importantly, because they WANT to do it.
The problem comes further down the line, when you just can't be bothered re-jigging the code, the 178,000th time, because you happened to find one person mention one bug on a random comment, on a site that wasn't yours and that you probably were never going to visit.
If people actually gave feedback more often, commented on the developers websites to say "This is good", or "This doesn't work", then more developers would be motivated to A) Continue them, and B) Fix them up.
It's when they have to trawl through hundreds of google pages, hunting for vague comments that may or may not be about their software, that it all gets a little bit too dull.
/rant
moragosJun 25th 2010 5:21PM
of course they want to do it, or they wouldn't have started with the project in the first place. But many of those people developed popular software; software with thousands (even tens of thousands) of users worldwide. Imagine how much email and support requests they receive.
No one should go searching the internet for bugs for his own free software, if a user has an issue he will usually check with the developer first
MxxConJun 26th 2010 2:11AM
somewhat along the similar lines, some free/open-source projects have a concept of bounty.
since developers do it on their own free time, they pretty much decide what they want to work on. if you want some feature to be implemented sooner than later or a need is very specific to you and unlikely to be implemented as part of the regular project, people offer to pay a bounty for when a desired functionality is implemented.
one such project that comes to mind is pfSense firewall. They have a dedicated forum http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?board=34.0 where people post their bounty offers.
SteapsJun 26th 2010 8:06PM
As an independent developer myself, you don't understand how much this helps. It's often hard to find all the bugs and fixes on your own.
TimJun 27th 2010 6:28AM
Seriously, Writemonkey might be a good full screen editor but you should try FocusWriter from http://gottcode.org/.
I use it every day for distraction free writing and I love it!