Making money off open source

[elitesoldier]

Hello, im a rather new programmer to the whole field. I recently learned VB v 6. I am coding a small project to help calculate crafting various items in a game i play. It is rather useful for me and thought it would be useful for others. The thing is if i should just freely distribute the code with source code and ask for donations, or if i should just charge a small fee. The fee would probably be $5.

Has anyone tried out which is better? I would get more people to use my program if i gave it away for free, but would they donate? On the other hand i would be able to make a small amount of money from selling it for downloading. Which do you think is better? Has anyone has experience with these pricing methods? I'm wondering which was more successful for you.

Thanks =)

 

[JLobes]

What you should probably do is ask yourself, would I pay 5 dollars fo this? Or ask your friends if they would. The problem is, that it seems like something so small, that it could be easily re-distibuted. I would just ask for donations.

 

[elitesoldier]

thanks! ill do that.