Hello all. I’m curious, when did downloading Fritzing start requiring us to make a donation? I get that supporting the development is important,I’ve been working in Open Source software for almost 25 years or so. But, I have to say, anytime a piece of software starts not just pushing for donations, but actively making it either a requirement or by obfuscating the ability to download without donating, I immediately get a bit weirded out. Especially since everyone is still referring to donations, not payment.
If it’s required, it’s not a donation.
So, when did this happen with Fritzing? I can’t find anywhere on the site to download without paying, or a reference to anything regarding downloading without paying. Any reference to downloading links to the payment download, and that page has no alternatives either. Am IO missing something, or has this project become a commercially driven endeavour now?
Joining the question, im having a hard time finding the specific download link that doesnt require me to make a donation in order to download the program
Exactly what prompted this post. Since starting this thread, I did a bit more digging and found that the software was originally funded by public funds, so maybe they were required to pay back those funds at some point and therefore started charging for the service? I don’t know, but I will say I’m a bit annoyed that I can’t even get a response to the question.
I would even be interested in making said donation/payment, but my question being ignored and the strange change to commercially driven project without any information as to when it happened and why just bothers me to no end.
I didn’t bother to answer because this topic has been beaten to death. I expect most other people feel the same. A search in the forums for “donation” should find the various previous posts. I think that the fact that development has restarted after 5 or 6 years of stagnation speaks for itself. No need to beat a dead horse nor e encouraging beating dead horses …
Anyone else notice that the above quoted text was not part of my original message? This is both strange and disconcerting, as that text is absolutely not coming from me and therefore has me worried you may have a breach of the forum’s security and/or API.
Just thought I’d point it out in case it had not been noticed.
If anything it is a fault of the forum API. It is entirely possible to do what was apparently done (insert text in to a quoted post AFAIK, as I did in this post to make sure it works as I expect, see the last line in the quote!) So it isn’t a security issue just a possible shortcoming in the forum code (which is third party not Fritzing’s) Hope this helps relieve some of the concern.
This has not much to do with security. Someone registered on the forum (which doesn’t require official ID or fingerprints, so basically anybody can do this), and faked a quote of your original post with a spam link. I have blocked and deleted the spammer.
