Here in Australia we have Meetup groups which request mandatory donations for hikers too.

Always by the worst guides. Surely the tax office and legal system (when people get injured) can't outsmart such actual genius lol

I dunno this lacks nuance… I think this could easily be referring to different economic situations. The concept of donation usually has this implication of not being a for-profit entity or for a indie developer’s side project. These kinds of apps usually are still either open source or source available which is different than closed, proprietary applications. With this focus on money, I would assume that “free” is meaning gratis where users can often be the product & while the source is not available …or some VC-funded product where they are loss-leading a free tier now just eventually charge everyone later which is hardly good, with a dash of open washing to taste.