"'Professionalism' is not a virtue; a professional is simply one who gets paid for doing what an amateur does for love."
-- Ursula K. LeGuin [about being a good writer]
One of these days I'll have to sit and sift through the various Open Source Licenses and pick the one that best fits my ideals.
If you DO make money out of my work, you have to share part of it with me, equivalent to my contribution.
-Or at least pay me for the time it took me to develop what you're using.
-Anyway, you ARE MORALLY BOUND to contact me with details.
If you DON'T make money from my work, you're free to adapt it to your project (BUT bound to acknowledge my copyright!!! including a small but visible link to the page of the project)
Freeware: You can have my knowledge for free (cos I love to teach and I think that ideas are born free),
Shareware: If you want me to modify my work to fit yer project, you gotta pay.
-My time is money. (currently $30/h - CA$ for people I like and US$ for people I don`t know or people I don't know or I don't like,
-AND I'll take the money only if you're happy with the result, or I worked too long on the project and it does pass my own criteria - which are pretty high.
-Of course, it may happen that you're still not satisfied with what I did for you. In that case, just don't pay me and I'll know there's no point in spending my time for you anymore.
Anyway if you think my time was well spent on the project you'd like to use, you can make a professional out of me in one of two ways:
Explanation: I am a husband and father, not to mention graduate student, grappling with international student fees, and huge health insurance fees, both of which siphon off almost all the money I get from scholarship and Teaching Assistant work. I'm not aiming to get rich on your money, but I hope at least to explain to my wife the hundreds of hours I spend writing code, papers and fiction :)
If you're short on funds, you can at least register yourself as a user of any of my freeware, so I can announce you of Updates. You don't get a T-shirt for filling in this form, but you DO get a message from me and the email address you provide will be added to my Monicsoft Updates distribution list.
One more thing: I want to help people, not hurt them, not even by proxy. So I won't work on anything possibly harmful, like bulk mail distributors, malicious code (viruses, worms, trojans), or offensive military applications (defensive stuff is OK, as long as it can't be applied to offense).
To decide whether to employ me or not or to check out some of my freeware, look at my finished (or abandoned :) programs. For projects I have now on the drawing board, please see my list of current ones. My other pastime showcases available now are: Literature and Shareware.