From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Thu Dec 04 2003 - 13:22:04 EST
On 04/12/2003 09:43, Edward H. Trager wrote:
> ...
>
>Organizations like SIL and projects like the Script Encoding Initiative
>(which you have highlighted below) already provide possible forums for these
>kinds of donations. Thank you for pointing out that such organizations are
>also happy to receive charitable monetary donations.
>
>
>
Incidentally, SIL is able to receive tax deductible donations in many
countries, not just the USA. This can be targeted to specific projects
such as the Non-Roman Scripts Initiative, and so need not be lost in a
general pool of support for Bible translation.
> ...
>
>Actually, I am a bioinformatics programmer, and to date I have given away
>my programs away for free. The main reason I give them away for
>free is fairly simple: the market of genetics researchers
>potentially interested in buying them is too small,
>so I would not make that much money trying to sell them. Alternatively, the
>per-seat licensing fee would have to be quite hefty --too hefty-- for me to make any money
>on it. My livelihood does not depend on selling these programs (I originally
>wrote the programs to get my own work done more efficiently), and the internet
>makes it easy to give the software away for free, so that's what I do.
>Of course in the future things could change, as the market is expanding because
>of advances in genetics, etc., and I actually did some research in collaboration
>with a real business man to evaluate what changes would be required in one of my
>programs to make it appeal to a much wider audience, and therefore marketable
>at some future point in time. So, in the email I was really only suggesting
>something --donation of digital intellectual property-- that I myself already do.
>
>So, I can honestly say that I have put my digital intellectual property, if
>not my money, where my mouth is. And I certainly will consider SEI as a candidate
>for monetary donations in the future.
>
>
>
Good points, Ed. If Michael or anyone else has software, fonts etc from
which they have no intention or expectation of earning money by selling
them, they lose nothing by giving them away, and gain a lot of goodwill
and possibly even donations e.g. to SEI from grateful users.
Alternatively, they could try to use the shareware principle and hope to
earn a few lots of $5 or $20 via Paypal. But it is to no one's benefit
if they sit on them like dogs in the manger.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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