The paid issue queue lets you hire the core team to work on issues that are important to you. Members and Partners receive a 30% discount.
All issues are fixed in the next released version of CiviCRM (e.g. an issue reported in 4.6.2 is fixed in 4.6.3); we do not fix issues in the LTS or in older versions of CiviCRM. All issues submitted to the queue should be of interest to a significant proportion of our user base.
All work is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License.
Initiation
Paid issues should first be reported on our issue tracker. They can then be escalated to the paid issue queue.
The resolution of every issue starts with a period of discovery (i.e. initial investigation of the issue). If discovery takes longer than 2 hours, we may require an initial payment to cover the time spent. Once the discovery is complete, we provide a time estimate to resolve the issue. This estimate includes time spent in discovery. We require payment in full based on the estimate before starting work on the issue. If during the discovery period, we find that the fix is trivial we may resolve the issue at no cost.
Bugs
Bugs for the paid issue queue should be reported on our issue tracker and replicated on one of the demo sites. Before submitting a bug, please take a few minutes to search for an existing issue. If the bug affects a part of CiviCRM that cannot be tested on the demo site, we can create a dedicated development site to replicate the issue. In any case we will create a development site which will be used for the client to test and approve the work.
Features
The paid issue queue can be used for small feature requests and improvements (typically 5 days work or less). Features should be described in detail on the issue tracker with references to appropriate supporting documentation. We create a development site to demonstrate new features. This site will also be used for the client to test and approve the work.
Completion and sign off
Issues are considered resolved when signed off by the client after testing on the site which was set up to work on the issue. At this point the client can also test the issue by running the upgraded code on their own development site.
The paid issue queue does not include deploying the issue to the client website. However, the client has a period of 60 days after the release of the version of CiviCRM in which their issue is resolved to deploy the issue onto their production site to ensure that it meets their requirements.
All work done via the paid issue queue includes adding or extending automated tests whenever applicable to prevent future regressions.
What about 'unpaid' issues?
In an ideal world, we would resolve all issues reported to us on the issue queue. In reality, we do not have the resouces to do this, and so have to prioitize the most important issues. We do this as follows. Highest priority are major security issues and issues that result in data loss. These will always be fixed free of charged as soon as possible after they are reported, and take priority over all other issues. All other issues are prioritised by the core team according to the impact they have on a site, and the number of sites affected by the issue. We fix as many issues as we can in each upcoming release of CiviCRM. Issues that we would like to fix, but do not have the resources to fix are assigned to a future version of CiviCRM. The paid issue queue provides a mechanism for people with the resources to do so to get issues that are important to them fixed sooner.
Open source software may be free to download and free to use, but it is not free to write. Operating a paid issue is one way in which we strike the balance between keeping CiviCRM free to download and use, while funding its continual improvement. We are grateful to all organisations that pay us to fix issues. As well as solving their particular issues, they are ensuring that CiviCRM remains a succesful free and open source product for its thousands of users for years to come.
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