Last updated November 8, 2011.
When a company or client makes a significant contribution to a project, consider mentioning these contributions on the project page under a "Sponsors" or "Credit" section heading (see Tips for a great project page). Attributing credit highlights the "good citizenship" efforts of companies, clients, and individuals who not only benefit from Drupal, but also help to sustain its growth. Providing credit encourages others to give back as well.
Significant contributions might include:
- Paying a theme maintainer to add a particularly difficult feature
- Porting a tricky module from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7
- Subsidizing employees' time for major development efforts
- Paying a module maintainer for regular module maintenance or for an extended period of time
As an individual contributor, when making such a contribution on behalf of a company or customer, go ahead and mention that in the comment when you post your initial patch. Suggested wording:
My time developing this patch was paid for by FooCorp. If you feel this was valuable, please consider mentioning their contribution on the project page.
Note:
- Reserve this for only significant contributions. Repeated "This typo fix is sponsored by FooCorp" will only serve to turn people off, and may reflect poorly on your company.
- It's ultimately up to the project maintainer to decide how or if they want to credit such contributions, just as it's ultimately up to companies whether to continue to do so, and to what extent.