Please let's stay on topic about donations for free software. The rest is collateral and useful but, really, it would be good to have first an exploration of the feature itself, potential, alternatives...

I'm not sure how much the lack of success for donation for PC software can be applied to mobile software. Millions of people are paying 0,99 through their mobile devices for the most stup... er... basic things. Why wouldn't they think of it for a piece of software they actually like and find useful?

I'll give you a totally fictional scenario to nurture your imagination:

A developer comes with with a free app based on Qt that happens to be available for the Maemo and Symbian platforms. It's distributed in Ovi at no cost and you can actually get it from 1001 places more if you wish.

When you download it you are encouraged to donate 1, 5 or 10€ that are discounted from your Nokia Money account, your operator bill or your associated PayPal account. The dialog tells you how many people have supported this app already and it has a checkbox for "Don't show me this message again".

Somewhere you will be able to see that Nokia doesn't get any commission and actually covers the % of transaction costs. A % of your donation will be distributed to a pool of well known related non-profits: FSF, Linux Foundation, CreativeCommons, etc.

Do you think a scenario like this is desirable? If so, then let's talk about ideas to get there at http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...gh_emphasized/

If you think the scenario is unreal or undesirable then please discuss.

Commercial developers, DRM and stuff are not really part of this debate.