Careware


Careware is software licensed in a way that benefits a charity. Some careware is distributed free, and the author suggests that some payment be made to either a nominated charity, or a charity of the user's choice. Commercial careware, on the other hand, includes a levy for charity on top of the distribution charge. It can also be a barter of some kind, or even a pledge to be kind to strangers.
The concept of careware and the first known use of the term itself appeared in Dr. Dobb's Journal in Al Stevens' C Programming Column in about 1988. Stevens was developing a user interface library and publishing the source code in monthly installments. To distribute code to readers, Stevens suggested they send him an addressed stamped mailer with a blank diskette. He copied the code onto the diskette and returned it. He also suggested that to express their appreciation they include a dollar, which he would donate to the local food bank in Brevard County, Florida. Stevens named this distribution method "careware."
Paul Lutus's careware idea involves no monetary exchange - instead it involves a request for the user to "stop complaining for a while and make the world a better place."
For example, the vim text editor is free software but includes a request from its author, Bram Moolenaar, that users donate to ICCF Holland for work to help AIDS victims in Uganda. Vim's has been declared by Richard Stallman to be GPL-compatible. Another current example is MJ's CD Archiver, a file archiver for Microsoft Windows/Linux/Mac OS X. The suggested charity is NACEF, a US-registered charity for China's Project Hope.
A close variation of careware is donationware, which has a stricter definition than careware.

Examples

Non-commercial examples

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