Careware (or charityware, 'donationware', 'helpware' or 'goodware'.) is software distributed in a way that benefits a charity. The term "CareWare" is a variant on shareware and freeware. Some careware is distributed free, and the author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity. Other careware includes a levy for charity on top of the distribution charge. It can also be a barter of some kind, or even a pledge to be kind to strangers.

Paul Lutus's CareWare idea involves no monetary exchange - instead it involves a request for the user to stop complaining for a while and make the world a better place. ^*

For example, the vim text editor is free software but includes a request from its author, Bram Moolenaar, that users donate to ICCF Holland for work to help AIDS victims in Uganda. Another current example is MJ's CD Archiver, a file archiver for Microsoft Windows/Linux/Mac OS X. The suggested charity is NACEF, a US-registered charity for China's Project Hope.

One more example of careware is the card game of concentration ^* where the author simply asks that if you plan to keep and/or use the program then you are asked to donate $5 to someone much less fortunate than yourself.

Software packages under Careware

• KiXtart
• Arachnoid
• Vim (text editor)
• fireFTP, a FTP extension for Firefox
• Charity-ware.org houses a collection of over 100 charityware titles created by a variety of developers.

Software distribution

Careware | Caritaticiel | Careware | Careware