[consulting] drupal consulting and agreements

[Larry Garfield]

Disclaimer: IANAL, and I am familiar with US law, not Italian law. :-)

Because Drupal and almost all publically available modules are under GPL 2, 
there's actually not a great deal that you need to do, or even can do.  Any 
code you provide to the client that came from drupal.org is under the GPL, 
and you provide it to the client under the terms of the GPL.  End of story.

The only question is code that you write new, and whether the copyright for it 
is held by you or the client.  That varies by jurisdiction, so double check 
for your country.  If the copyright is held by you, then you are then 
required to provide it to the client under the GPL if you are providing it 
with Drupal itself.  You can also then distribute it to others (patches to 
core/contrib or new contrib modules) if you feel it is useful, unless your 
contract with the client explicitly says otherwise.

If the copyright is held by the client, then it's up to the client whether 
they want to distribute it.  If they distribute a modified core or contrib 
module, then they would have to do so under the GPL.  A brand new module they 
could distribute commercially, I believe, as long as they distribute it not 
packaged with Drupal.  (As could you, with the same caveat.)

On Saturday 17 December 2005 04:30 pm, Fabio Varesano wrote:
> Hi everybody.
>
> I'm going to start a drupal consulting project and I'm currently
> writing an agreement between me and my client.
>
> This is my first big drupal based consulting project.
> I'm not really experienced on writing agreements becouse
> I worked only as employeed on a web agency.
> This is my first free-lace consulting agreement.
>
> Every kind of advices or examples on this are really appreciated.
>
> In particular: do you usally give some EULA (End User Licence Agreement)?
>
> And if I want to share the developed modules or features
> with the community (releasing as GPL) what do I have to do?
>
> Thanks a lot
>
> Cheers.
>
> Fabio Varesano      Italy
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, 
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to 
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession 
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."  -- Thomas 
Jefferson