Making a Donation FAQ

Until March 2010 I had been working at the University of Karlsruhe, which is now part of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Although no longer employed, I am still a member of its faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and voluntarily teach as a Private Lecturer in our study programme "European Culture and History of Ideas".

According to German law, the copyright of all the software I had written as a researcher at university remaines with myself. Nevertheless, I always felt that the general public should benefit from my work free of charge as long as it is funded by tax payers. Thus, I decided to publish my software under open source licenses without asking for donations.

Meanwhile the circumstances have changed. I am no longer payed by a public institution and have to find other means of income. Therefore, I am asking now for donations that would help me to continue developing, documenting and supporting my various open source projects.

This, of course, should depend on your personal situation and the benefits you gained from using my software. For an estimation compare it with what you payed for commercial software and how much you were getting in return from it.

Donating does not grant you any additional support or influence on the features of future developments. If you need consultancy or specific help with your Delphi project, I might be available to work for you as a freelancer. My rates are based on average rates for a skilled Delphi programmer in Germany. You may contact me via <ed.olihp@k.d>.

No. I have plans for a commercial application in the near future, because I doubt that donations only are going to be sufficient source of income. But the more donations I receive, the more I can focus on my open source projects instead.

Currently my earnings are not high enough to require me to register for VAT (the European sales tax). So I do not charge any VAT, or pay VAT to the government - and you can not claim VAT back for your donations if you are VAT registered yourself.

I setup a PayPal account where you can send your donations to. It accept contributions from many different countries (including the United States, Canada, the EU, and others). The payment is processed by PayPal but you don't need to have a PayPal account or sign-up for one if you are paying by credit card, just follow the instructions carefully. Click on this button to make a donation:

Thank you very much!

Dieter Köhler