(charityware, helpware, goodware – charity, help or good software). Careware is a form of software distribution that benefits a charity. Some careware is freely distributed and the author suggests donating money to a listed charity.
For example, the text editor «vim» is free software, but it includes a request from its author for its users to donate money to an aid institution for AIDS victims in Uganda. Another current example is the MJs CD Archiver application, a file archiver that suggests a charity to NACEF.
A variant of careware is donateware, which is more strictly defined than careware.
The first time this concept was used was in 1988 by Al Stevens, who published a column on programming where he asked them to send a dollar by mail to a charity to send them a copy of a program he made.
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