At DrupalCon in San Francisco I sat on a panel "From Contractor To Shop" hosted by Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg from Zivtech. During the discussion it came up that CivicActions licenses all of its documents under Creative Commons.  This is a big thing for us.  One of our foundational values is "Openness".  It's a big world out there, and it needs a lot of help. We believe that the more we all share, the easier it will be for individuals and organizations to get down to brass tacks and start fixing it.

This is one of the reasons we released our Estimating Worksheet Template last year. Since then we've gotten great feedback from other shops and individuals who are using it.  We put a lot of time and thought into making it useful and there is no reason why someone "down the road" should have to spend a bunch of time remaking something like it. All we ask is that improvements get returned to us and the community -- the open source way.

In that spirit, we've cleaned up the standard contract terms, conditions and licenses that we include on all our projects and are releasing them under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.  These terms are a starting point, and as anyone who has done business knows, often there is some negotiation involved before the papers get signed, but this is where we start.

The attached document is something that anyone can use as their own starting point for a contract template. If you do use the terms we've written, please understand the meaning and obligation of the license under which they are provided. Attribution, Share Alike. Credit CivicActions as the licensor of the work, and share any modifications you make to these Terms and Conditions. 

We understand that this is "different" and unfamiliar for many people out there, but it's high time for some "different" ways of being and doing business.  If you have questions or thoughts about our open policies, drop us a comment. If you find this template useful, please let us know too.  We are going to keep on striving towards open by releasing more documents and resources as we develop them.

UPDATE: I've attached a new version of this template which includes an update to the Affero GPL.  The new license is the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3. This update is included in the "civicactions_contract_terms_v4.0.odt" file attached below.

PLEASE NOTE: CivicActions makes NO warranties expressed or implied and assumes no liability by providing this contract template. You should consult with your own lawyer and make adjustments as necessary based on the local laws in your state and the laws governing your corporate entity.