People are cool and like free software

MarcoPolo is free software (as in speech and beer). I do it for the love of programming, and for the challenge of tackling a problem and coming up with a useful, original solution. It's very much a part-time pursuit, and I don't get to it as often as I'd like, but that's fine too. I'm in it for love, not money or acclaim.

I remember not long after releasing MarcoPolo someone emailed me to ask if they could donate. I was flabbergasted. I didn't understand. He convinced me to add a PayPal link to my website. Someone else suggested an Amazon wish list, so I added one of those too. I seem to get a trickle of donations from both. It's far from enough to live on, but it handily covers my web hosting, and gives me some entertaining reading and listening. And every time someone donates it gives me a warm buzz. Why? Because no-one is legally or morally obligated to do that, but they do it anyway. It validates what I've done as something that matters to someone else, and matters enough for them to give up some money. Even a "thank you" email contributes to that, and I love reading that people's computing lives are a little more simple or joyous because of software that I wrote.

So a big thank you to everyone who has sent me a donation of any kind, or an appreciative email. I hope I can strive to keep making gradual process with this massive rewrite, and produce a piece of free software that's even better than before.