Fritzing licence/ free trial

beginners
1

Hello Fritzing,

I am totally new to Fritzing, and I wanted to download the appimage for Linux mint.

I am ready to pay something, but I cannot find the terms of the license.

So I have a few questions :
a) is this possible to use Fritzing for a free trial ?

b) What do I pay for ?
b1) single download for only one download ?
b2) is the payment linked to my Fritzing account ?
b3) once I have paid, can I use the app on different computers, linked to my Fritzing account ? Do I have to pay for releases upgraded etc…

c) where do the funds go to ?

Thanks a lot for clarifications.
All the best
Pierre

2

With the note that I am a Fritzing user not a developer here are some answers

You can build Fritzing from source (which is quite complex) from the source on github.

The donation receipt provides a download link that will allow you to download new versions for (I think!) around 1 year. Presumably you can use it on machines that you own.

The funds are being used to continue development of Fritzing (which had stopped for around 5 years before the new scheme was introduced around 2019.)

Peter

1 Like
3

Thank you very much for this clarification, Peter.

I could build Fritzing from source but I have not time enough for this.

It would be great if

  • Fritzing app image had a free trial limited in Time or Features ( limited in time is better for occasional users
  • if the terms of contract were clearly defined in the download section of the website

Anyway I need it so I am going to participate.
Thanks, all the best,

Pierre

1 Like
4

I expect the issue there is developer time. Creating such a feature takes time (which is already short) and the consideration likely is to fix bugs which helps the community that has donated is a better use of the available time (and as both someone who has donated, and benefited from bug fixes I completely agree.)

Again I agree, but I expect the same rules apply, it takes resources which are in short supply to do such things, which may take away from bug fixing. The developers have done a stellar job with the resources available, we as a community are way further ahead with this model than what happened when project funding died in 2016. I spent around 5 years trying to get development restarted with zero success (the code is very complex and almost completely undocumented) so I can testify they have and continue to do a great job. We have gone from no releases for 4 years to a new version every 3 or 4 months with may of the major bugs fixed. There is lots of bitching about the donations (do a search for donation in the forum search bar to see the previous posts) which are largely (in my view) a waste of time as this method worked and nothing else did.

Peter

5

Thanks Peter and thanks to the Fritzing developers.

So I’ll be happy to make my donation, and wait for the software and license agreement to improve.

Thanks again and have a nice day.
Pierre