I am planning to create an open source project for a web application whose entire premise is to provide an otherwise paid service for free, so I am not planning to commercialize the project. This project is also a passion project. I seek to improve my skills by working on the application and I am not looking forward to expand it as an organization nor invest more time or resources into it than necessary.

However I want to know if I could ask for voluntary donations which support me on a personal level and not for the project itself. I want to consider it as a passive income and I don’t care how much I receive in donations as long as I am doing it ethically and someone is willing to donate for this purpose knowingly.

If it is possible for me to ask for donations this way, how would it impact the domain of my website? Could I use .org for it being non-profit overall or would I need to use .com for asking for donations to be used for personal expenses in any manner? Or would I need to use a specific domain for this situation?

  • h3ndrik@feddit.de
    18·
    6 months ago

    Those top level domains aren’t set in stone. The majority of TLDs can be used by anyone. It’s more what kind of image you want for your company/project. Lots of open-source projects have .org domains or .io

    But you can choose whatever you like. Even a country domain is okay. But I personally wouldn’t choose .com for something open source. Look at the prices and go for .org unless that’s substantially more expensive with your registrar. (My opinion.)

  • vvv@programming.dev
    14·
    6 months ago

    Be careful, if you get a .pizza, you are only legally allowed to spend the donations on pizza.

  • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
    7·
    6 months ago

    I know that it doesn’t matter that much at the end of the day but why not spend a minute and get something you’re happy with.

    IMHO an .org or .com would send the wrong message. It sort of makes people expect an established non-profit entity or a company, respectively.

    From the established TLDs I think .net would work well in this case.

    How much do you care about the privacy of your personal data in the TLD’s registry? What about the cost of the domain, going forward? And what about long term stability of the TLD registry?

  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    5·
    6 months ago

    You could be a douche and get a .io domain.

    I’d just peruse your preferred domain registrar’s cheap domains and find one that tickles your fancy. Odds are the domain will cost more than what you’d get in donations unless people REALLY like your service and it gets popular.

  • pe1uca@lemmy.pe1uca.dev
    4·
    6 months ago

    Since it’ll be for you and not the project, why not go for a .dev or .me TLD?
    I think .dev is usually used for “in development” projects, but I can also see it as “about a developer” (and that’s why I bought mine)

  • philluminati@lemmy.ml
    2·
    6 months ago

    Normally this sort of organisation is called a “not for profit”. It acts like a company in every respect but doesn’t do more than pay for its own use. Examples are semi-public services such as “Transport for London” etc. in terms of org or dot com, I think you can use either.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zone
      3·
      6 months ago

      I dunno if TFL is a good example to use. It’s just straight up a government-owned corporation and it uses a .gov.uk eTLD.

  • luciole (he/him)@beehaw.org
    1·
    6 months ago

    Just please don’t be smart ass and choose a non relevant top-level domain because it looks cute. .io is for the British Indian Ocean Territory. .af is for Afghanistan. queer.af actually got taken down by the talibans.

    .com and .org are both open TLDs and totally fine. If you’re afraid to be understood as organization, you can go for .com. It’s the default of the web by now.

    If your service can be understood as some kind of web application, you could look into .app as well.

    • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
      1·
      6 months ago

      Doesn’t .com mean “commercial” and that doesn’t fit his project at all.

      Go to Namecheap.com and play around with their domain generator. There’s plenty of none-ccTLD’s to choose from.

      Depending on the project, you could find a gTLD that fits your project.

      .tech .dev .app …etc

    • Melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I don’t think the relevance of the TLD matters. It’s worth being aware of whether you’re using a ccTLD, especially in the case of countries like Afghanistan, but you also used .io as an example which is overwhelmingly used by non-British Indian Ocean Territory sites and is proven reliable. It’s even managed by an American company.

      Then .app isn’t a part of the original TLDs, but actually a part of the new wave of modern gTLDs. And if you’re considering .app, there’s no reason not to consider the thousands of other generic TLDs out there.

      Like with the ccTLDs, the only thing you have to consider is the trustworthiness of the managing org.

    • adr1an@programming.dev
      1·
      6 months ago

      Many offers are super cheap for the first N years. I prefer flat and transparent rates, specially for a domain name I will keep (e.g. tied to me, and not the success or failure of some X project of mine)