Donations for ExifTool, OpenStreetMap, GeoNames.org ...

[Mario]

All these tools and services are free for you to use. Created and maintained by volunteers who spend their time creating.

At the end of each year, I donate a few (or more) dollars to each freeware project I use.
This does not cost me much (less than an evening at the movies or two *bucks coffees) but it helps these projects a great deal.

If you have benefited from these projects (or others), consider to donate 3, 5 or more US$ to a couple of these projects.
All take Paypal so you can donate super-quick and without giving away your data or credit card info.

ExifTool is the core software used by IMatch to read and write metadata. And to fix the metadata mess produced by other software.
Phil Harvey, the author of ExifTool, does all this for free and demands no payment.
Still, he has costs to cover and every dollar helps.

https://exiftool.org/#donate

I know that  many of you use the free OpenStreetMap project for working with maps in IMatch.
OpenStreetMap provides technology and infrastructure for mapping. Many people all over the world help this project.
If you use OpenStreetMap in the IMatch Map Panel, consider a small donation:

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Donate/PayPal

If you use reverse geocoding in IMatch based on the free GeoNames.org project, consider a donation.
These friendly people have to maintain their servers and keep the technology working.

https://www.geonames.org/donations.html

FFMpeg is used by IMatch to extract previews from video files.

https://ffmpeg.org/donations.html

The LibRaw project helps IMatch to process proprietary RAW files, even when the camera vendor is to shabby to provide a WIC codec for their RAW formats and Microsoft is late or unwilling to update a WIC codec to support yet another RAW format variant.

https://www.libraw.org/

There is no donation page I could find, but if you profited from LibRaw for some time, consider purchasing a copy of FastRawViewer, available for Windows and MacOS:

https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

[Carlo Didier]

Excellent idea!

[Tveloso]

Yes, this is an excellent idea...and with today being Giving Tuesday, it was good opportunity to make one or more donations...(I went ahead and did it!)

[Mario]

Thanks, excellent!

Even if we only give a few dollars or divide, say, 10$ between two or three projects, it helps to keep them going. Which is good for us all. Fast reverse geocoding, RAW processing independent from Adobe, metadata processing, ...

Most people are just too lazy   - but thanks to services like PayPal making a donation takes only a minute and is safe and secure.

[Jingo]

Thanks, excellent!

Even if we only give a few dollars or divide, say, 10$ between two or three projects, it helps to keep them going. Which is good for us all. Fast reverse geocoding, RAW processing independent from Adobe, metadata processing, ...

Most people are just too lazy   - but thanks to services like PayPal making a donation takes only a minute and is safe and secure.

Done!  Great idea... and I often forget myself.

[Mario]

Thanks for supporting open source projects. Every dollar counts!

[ben]

Thanks for the donation link. Pretty easy indeed

[mastodon]

Good idea!

[afengler]

Done! Thanks for the links, easy indeed.

[Mario]

Thanks!

Keeping the open source community financially fluid helps everyone.

[wanderer2022]

Sehr gut und sehr wichtig, wir haben alle was von deren Arbeit.

[thrinn]

Thank you for the reminder! Done!

[Mario]

So, I'm through for this year.

I've picked 10 projects (from Wikipedia to ExifTool) and donated money to each of these projects and the fine folks creating and maintaining them.
The amount of money I've donated varies, but I believe that you have to give something back.
Even if you donate only 5 dollars to something like GeoNames.org or ExifTool or OpenLayers or FFMpeg or..., you're helping these fine people a lot. You all benefit from these projects when you use IMatch.
Don't be lazy. They all support PayPal and it only takes a minute to send them a couple of dollars.

Phil from ExifTool told me that my donation helped to finance his new exiftool.org domain. Now, that's a good thing, isn't it 

Of course I assume that you all will be happy to purchase your upgrades for IMatch 2020, when it is released in a few weeks. I'm counting on you! Yes. You!
Gosh, there are so many awesome new features in IMatch 2020...it's sooo good, it even has its own AI now   
The bestest IMatch version ever!

Merry Christmas to You and Your Family!

[Tveloso]

Merry Christmas Mario!  All the best to you and your family.

Thank you so much for the awesome software!...and you can count on me to be one of the first in line for IMatch 2020!

[Jingo]

Merry Christmas Mario!  All the best to you and your family.

Thank you so much for the awesome software!...and you can count on me to be one of the first in line for IMatch 2020!

Same here Mario... have the funds for 2020 already set aside and ready to buy buy buy!  Merry Christmas to you..... and to all others in this fine community!

[kiwilink]

Mario:

Just donated to Mr. Phil Harvey in Canada based on your suggestion and just received a thank you from him.

Glad to follow your suggestion, Mario!

Kiwilink

[Mario]

As always at this time of the year, I want to remind you that we all use services developed, supported and often paid for by volunteers and friendly folks all over the world.

ExifTool, OpenStreetMap, GeoNames.org, LibRaw, OpenCV, DLib etc. (see the list at the top of this thread).

Donating a few dollars to one or more of these services helps them tremendously.
It helps with the hardware and software cost. Hosting bills. And is always also a sign of our appreciation for what they do.

I always donate money to my most favored open source projects, libraries and stuff. Even things I don't use too often, like Wikipedia. Because I know how important they are.
We all live in interesting times (in the Chinese saying sense) and many nice people struggle.
But if you have a few dollars left for spending, consider one of the projects IMatch uses to make some of the the magic work.

If you have a few bucks to spare, send your favorite open source project some money and some kind words.
I'm just doing that right now, as I do every year.

[StanRohrer]

Some of my photo projects indeed make an income for me. Sharing my income for the photo tracking tools I use makes good business sense and generosity.

Note that the GeoNames path using credit card via PayPal has the form default to EUR and a USD option is not available. I'm in the USA and did not want to attempt screwing up money conversions and donation form entries. Mario, if you have an inside track to a GeoNames contact, you might relay my USD form input concern. A USD option would have made a contribution easier from here.

[Mario]

Sorry, I have no additional contact info.
But they have a forum (https://forum.geonames.org/) and probably you can tell them about the issue.

When I use their donation link, PayPal opens with EUR as the currency. I see no way to change this.
So this is either some issue on PayPal's site, or GeoNames.org somehow hard-codes the currency when they forward to PayPal. No idea, sorry.

[belenos]

Die ganz hervorragende Arbeit von Mario und der vielen Freiwilligen von EXIFTOOLS, GEONAMES und OPEN STREETMAP kann man nicht hoch genug einschätzen! Daher spende ich gerne ! Und ich hoffe auf viele weitere Spender....

[Mario]

Another year has almost passed and it's time again to send some love and money to the friendly people who create and support open source tools and services we all love and use.

See the first post at the top for links for donation pages.