Has anyone tried a Humble Bundle approach, where users buy the software and have the option of entering $0? I suspect having a non-zero default payment and a guilt-inducing average payment would encourage people to donate, while allowing them the option to just get it for free.
I could put on my patio11 hat and say "Just charge for it"
I've used this, as a 'buyer' (and have bought in several cases) for things like books and detailed articles written by independent people.
One extra benefit is 'please sign up for email updates' which while in almost all cases not mandatory, comes with text like "stay up to date" or "receive insights".
I usually do sign-up, and this keeps the person providing these updates with another potential customer for other stuff, and me with usually useful (as I've self-selected as being interested) and interesting updates.
That's a really good point about using a lightly locked gate as a way of collecting interested people's email. Even in the case of a totally marketing averse 'free as in beer and speech' open source project, an email list of users is useful.
You could tell them about updates, new projects or terrible bugs
Don't let me stand in the way of an opensource bundle promotion dealy-bopper, but all I meant was borrowing the concept that they use when you "buy" a bundle. Instead of letting a user directly download whatever free opensource widget you've made and hoping they donate, plant a big mean 'ole "are you going to buy that?" screen before the download link.
A free open bundle library would make this a lot easier, but if someone writes one, for the love of god, dogfood it! We can't have you starving in the streets while trying to make other altruistic developers money. ;)
I could put on my patio11 hat and say "Just charge for it"