European Union Public Licence (eupl)
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The European Union Public Licence (EUPL) is a software license that aims to provide a copyleft alternative with explicit patent grants and compatibility with other licenses, sparking discussion on its features, adoption, and implications.
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https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu...
Like https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu... as given above. (-:
* https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/parliamen...
* https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/cs/parliamen...
The headlined page, as was pointed out, is just some system administrator's own WWW site, moreover.
If you wanted an apt one, instead of a random radio equipment marketing directive, that was specifically EUR-Lex, there's https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2017/863/oj which is the E.U. Commission decision promulgating version 1.2 of the EUPL.
As noted elsethread, neither one, nor the E.U. Parliament nor E.U. Court of Justice, does things exactly the way that Javier Casares does them.
Also note that outadoc wasn't actually asking how to read the text, in the first place. outadoc was pointing out that Javier Casares's unofficial copy here does not anywhere hyperlink (in order to provide a source) to the official europa.eu. WWW site, which outadoc then pointed to. Nor does it hyperlink to the aforelinked E.U. Journal entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Equipment_Directive_(202...
Other people might see the above as an advantage, as you can dual license and those who do not like AGPL can buy a commercial license.
He has misunderstood the AGPL (there is no requirement to send changes to the original developer, only make them available to users).
His modification of EUPL is to explicitly remove one of his advantages, by reducing compatibility with all but two (AGPL and OSL). h It looks like his EUPL is not compatible with the EU's EUPL as a result of that modification, and the only way to mix the two would be to license as OSL or AGPL.
So then for people who are living inside EU it is a good ideal to use this license instead of AGPL if they don't want their code ended up in some transnational big corp for example?
EU based big corps will be fine with EU jurisdiction.
Very annoying to modify without renaming.
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> the EUPL could therefore be described as an “affero-like” licence (AGPLv3).
> The EUPL covers SaaS (Software as a Service): if an internet service provider modifies the licensed software to distribute online services (as Google does), this is “software distribution”.
https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ne...
> — ‘Distribution’ or ‘Communication’: any act of selling, giving, lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making available, online or offline, copies of the Work or providing access to its essential functionalities at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.
Does it have the equivalent "anti-Tivoization" requirement of GPLv3?
I found Linus Torvalds' arguments for GPLv2 (vs v3) very compelling, but the SaaS loophole to contributing back seems sort of absurd. Torvalds doesn't get his code changes either.. so I feel he's likely also not thrilled. I'd love to find something that's effectively AGPLv2 (and not v3)
EDIT:
Here:
Nevermind .. it seems to have bizarre relicensing loopholes..
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2
Seems a bit insane - esp the two step relicense :
> The EUPL allows relicensing to GPLv2 only and GPLv3 only
So I guess you just relicense to GPLv2 and then do whatever you want
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_Lice...
> In the Free Software Foundation's judgment, the added requirement in section 2(d) of Affero GPL v1 made it incompatible with the otherwise nearly identical GPLv2. That is to say, one cannot distribute a single work formed by combining components covered by each license.
> By contrast, the GPLv3 and GNU AGPLv3 licenses include clauses (in section 13 of each license) that together achieve a form of mutual compatibility for the two licenses.
Maybe what I'm asking doesn't make sense. B/c it requires for for instance GPL to include the ability to be restricted further by the no-SaaS clause. The GPL only allows for AGPLv3. It's explicit
It's good that it has been written in multiple languages to aid acceptance across the EU.
What I like most of all is the listing of compatible licences.if I understand correctly this would enable you to combine GPL and EUPL software and publish the new software under the GPL. Would be nice to see reciprocation so the new software could also be published under the EUPL.
In contrast, affero style copyleft licenses are used often specifically to support a business model which allows contributors to take changes from other people back into their code. And an uncaring party can take EUPL code, relicense it under AGPL and now, the original party cannot use the AGPL code.
Linus made the same argument for not having GPL 2.0 or later for linux kernel.
> If the Licensee Distributes or Communicates Derivative Works or copies thereof based upon both the Work and another work licensed under a Compatible Licence, this Distribution or Communication can be done under the terms of this Compatible Licence.
They do mention explicitly "Derivative works", meaning you can not just convert an EUPL software component to GPL and call it a day.
To my understanding: If you do include an EUPL component inside a GPLv3 project and it is allowed. But the component itself stay under EUPL.
(I would appreciate the confirmation of a lawyer from EU, I am not one).
However it seems strange that they didn't think about that. Maybe it's only a bad choice of words, which is equally strange.
I think it is just a different intend.
To my understanding, the EUPLv1.2 is structured as a weak copy-left license in the spirit of the MPLv2 but with a major effort on license compatibility.
Its quite well explained here:
https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/li...
The intend seems to never be a "strong license" that enforce "strong copyleft" like the GPLv3 / AGPL everywhere.
It is more to give a license under which you can create a project that blend a lot of different component under different licenses (GPL, MPL and co) without requiring an army of lawyer to check the compatibility of this mess.
That is currently immensely valuable in academic software and in large international collaborations.
It also clarify the License contamination behavior over Linking at European Level which is very welcome, because it is frankly speaking, a mess, with license like LGPL.
My understanding is it's possible to license either new contributions to a project under GPL, with the original contributions keeping EUPL or you can license a derivative work under GPL, though you still have to comply with the EUPL in regards to the original work (meaning the SaaS loophole will remain closed)
Such as what?
> And it is good that it explicitly calls out the legal jurisdiction it sits under (EU).
Offputting if you are not in the EU.
> It's good that it has been written in multiple languages to aid acceptance across the EU.
Yes, but it looks like its designed primarily for use by the EU itself. It says:
> The main objective of the European Commission is to distribute widely and promote the use of software owned by itself and other European Institutions under an Free/Open Source Licence conform to European law requirements.
Its great that the EU commission is committing to open source, but only EU institutions rather than a broader push for FOSS in the EU.
> Would be nice to see reciprocation so the new software could also be published under the EUPL
Unlikely, because no one other than an EU agency would want some of the clauses. The click to agree thing in particular.
>Offputting if you are not in the EU.
Knowing the jurisdiction that the licence sits under is a huge advantage, because it tells you the legal framework you are operating under. That means that a lawyer should be able to advise you on what meets the license terms based on settled law and precedent. That's much cheaper than fighting it out in court.
It's really the same as corporate incorporation - you chose a jurisdiction with a solid corpus of precedent and case law to avoid court cases. that's why most folk chose Delaware for the US.
> Offputting if you are not in the EU.
Why? US law is terrible. You don't want to be ruled by it on pretty much any issue you can avoid.
I have lived in a country where I did not prefer the jurisdiction so I can understand.
The US might still be attractive to the licensor because of some aspects of copyright law there.
In the 90s, there were dozens (hundreds?) of phone charging ports. A couple of years ago, there were only two. The dozens -> 2 simplifications occurred on the purely free market. And the EU mandated a simplification from 2 -> 1 and gets the credit for the entire simplification.
What is the point of this license? Either the GPL is invalid in the EU, in which case why aren't companies moving to the EU to infringe on the GPL? Or it is valid, in which case a a bunch of EU lawyers were given a bunch of MY money to do nothing of value to anyone.
That was also done by the European Commission[0].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
By the time the EU actually first proposed regulation on the matter, which was only in 2020, there were in effect three ports on the phone market: the Apple Lightning was still used in iPhones, and the rest of the market was undergoing an orderly migration from the cheaper micro-USB port, to the more expensive but better USB-C port.
So yes, the free market was entirely responsible for transitioning from dozens of ports to 3 ports, and would have very likely eventually transitioned to 2 ports. The fact that the EU made recommendation to that effect years ago after the trend had begun that was purely voluntary is an entirely irrelevant datum.
I imagine they would have eventually converged on USB anyway, but when the upcoming rules (or "rules") were announced, you definitely could not count on being able to charge your phone using anyone else's charger (or one of the many that had come with your previous phones).
Counterfactuals are tricky, and we'll never know for sure what might have been, but seeing laptop manufacturers dragging their feet, I really can't see how you could feel so certain that the market would have fixed the mess that existed just as quickly.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_1... (search for "ultimatum"
Today it's you, tomorrow someone else.
Always the same "points" and the poster always seems to feel obliged to bring their own misshapen view of history, forgetting that a lot of good changes in this so-called "free market" happened because of the EU.
Sure more tech became popular out of the US but let's not be blinded:
1. This tech isn't/wasn't the only innovative tech ever created
2. A lot of reasons for the popularity has to do with US position over the rest of the world
3. That this same tech has been kept at bay because of the US
I'm not saying the EU is perfect but I prefer its direction over the US, especially when it comes to making legislations which benefits the people rather than multinational corporations.
I live in Romania, and the people that were rushing to pirate Windows in the 90's after communism fell because they couldn't afford licensing weren't doing so because of any US imposition, but simply because they wanted to use personal computers, and Windows was the best OS for most people at the time for that purpose.
Just like when phones came around they rushed to buy Nokia phones; when smartphones came around they rushed to buy Samsung phones; when they wanted DLSRs they bought Canon and Nikon cameras and now that they want easily transferable digital cash and cheap tech trinkets they opened up Revolut accounts and order stuff off Temu.
Not because of any "influence" or "position" of Finland, South Korea, Japan, the UK or China, but simply because they are the best offer on the market as perceived by consumers.
What tech does Europe lead in? To be fair there are still some fields, like Aerospace (Airbus), Lithography (ASML) or Pharmaceutics (BioNTech). But on the consumer tech market, the phones, laptops and streaming services people want? The EU has no presence. Even the auto industry is going to be eaten up by China, because Europe simply pivoted too late to EVs. I know someone who works at Renault and they're just terrified of the cars that are coming out of China.
I'm working on it, give me another ten years <3
There are European alternatives for many products/services that are currently US-based but they either don't have the same marketing budgets, or international reach or can offer lower prices. All those are often due to first-to-market tied with anti-competitive practices (further tied to governments not having much power against these organisations) which makes these companies move even more to the top. None of that was about better tech but rather everything else.
And sometimes yes, better tech, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that "better tech" is not somehow tied to more money available to spend on improving such tech. Big capitals being moved around the US has an impact to this tech.
By the way, there are European alternatives Amazon (just not big enough to be international, but many countries have their own version), Microsoft (i.e. Linux), Google (ProtonMail/ProtonDrive , Nextcloud, etc.), AWS (the ones which comes to mind are Upcloud and Hetzner), Android/iOS (Ubuntu Touch)
More like ability to buy competition.
Good legislators let it be known that a situation is unacceptable and that legislation is coming.
Good companies respond to that and start to align with the legislation.
When the legislation becomes law - no one is shocked or surprised or caught out.
In the context of EU regulating stuff, "a license" (at least to me) is not automatically assumed to be with regards to software distribution rights. I get that the naming makes it look similar to the (L)GPL and so on, but that could just be marketing and/or someone trying to associate with known things.
The first paragraph after the main title would have been better if it had a second sentence:
That would (to me) have made it so much more clear, and avoided having to build up confusion while reading until the purpose was revealed.* https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?&uri=CELEX:3...
through the Dessenheim, Sierentz, Dannemarie, Staffelfelden, and Seebach licences
* https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
to navigability licences.
* https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
Not everyone just assumes that a licence that has passed through a E.U. Commission approvals process is a software copyright licence.
That said, this is a personal WWW site of someone named Javier Casares, apparently a system administrator. Any E.U. citizen can rent a eu. subdomain. The E.U.'s own domain is europa.eu. and the E.U. Commission's own blurb gets straight to the point in its first sentence:
* https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive...
I was expecting it to be a software license, but it was (to me) confusing and thus annoying that it wasn't made more clear from the beginning of the text. The entire first section did not specify that it was talking about software, and I think that is important context and should be stated very early.
One of the compatible licenses is specifically: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike v. 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) for works other than software"
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afreebsd%2Ffreebsd-ports+%...
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Avoid-linux%2Fvoid-package...
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3ANixOS%2Fnixpkgs+%22EUPL12...
Most of the software from the EU and some governments are also under EUPL, but those tend to be "source dumps" that no one really builds.
> This website is not sponsored or endorsed by the European Commission or any other institution, body or agency of the European Union.
https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive...
https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl
- EUPL is closely modeled after GPL. If you take away one thing then that: If you squint hard enough you will see GPL.
- In a sense it is closer to GPLv3. It has explicit patent related terms. It lacks Tivozation and DRM provisions, so it is not a complete match.
- Beyond what is in the GPL the EUPL tries to be explicit when it comes to license compatibility. EUPL distinguishes between inbound and outbound compatibility and it is very important to be clear when speaking about this.
- Other Copyleft licenses (esp. GPL) are NOT inbound compatible with EUPL.
- GPL (v2 and v3) are outbound compatible besides some other explicitly listed licenses.
The last point is very strange and the biggest quirk in the otherwise pretty boring EUPL. The issue is this: EUPL has some additional restrictions that go beyond GPL. On the other side the GPL does not allow additional restrictions apart from certain precisely defined exceptions ("section 6").
The mechanism the EUPL has chosen to deal with this is that you are legally authorized to switch from EUPL to GPL, and after switching, all the stricter EUPL bits fall away.
[1] I am not a lawyer, consider my vantage being that of an EU startup, also opinions my own, not speaking for my employer.
EDIT: Skimming through the other comments I got the impression that many consider the EUPL closer to the AGPL. The reason I don't see it that way is the mentioned outbound GPL compatibility which renders the additional Affero provisions toothless.
EDIT 2: See bcye's comments which point out an interesting angle that might mean that my views regarding the AGPL issue may be too simplistic.
On the other hand, if you want GPLv3 anyways the EUPL doesn't hurt much because of its outbound compatibility.
edit: some words from the FSF
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2To me, this seems very poorly thought out. I see no reason to use this license over AGPL (or even GPL).
What Redis did by embracing a bad license shouldn't be applauded either. But the problem is that there isn't a great copyleft license that prevents embrace, extend & extinguish of great cloud projects. EUPL might've been it, and this weird clause just kills what would have made it perfect.
That is, to be able to be hosted by someone else is a necessary factor in widespread adoption and success.
The open source ethos is to give code that you are allowed to do as you wish with, including forking. The idea that there should only be one canonical project is... just wrong.
The open source ethos is not to give code to do as you wish with. It's to ensure users have control over the software and are not controlled by it.
It's not about blocking competition, it's about levelling the playing field. You are supporting the cause of trillion dollar megacorporations in their campaign of capitalizing on open source software over the backs of passionate trailblazers.
The maintainers of Valkey are being tricked by these companies to continue to develop for a project that can be easily exploited.
Presumably, it does close the loophole, though it's not very clear-cut. https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/di...
If I understand correctly, the derived work would be distributed under the Combined License (say, GPLv3). How can these additional obligations be enforced if they are not part of the license the combined work is distributed under?
In other words, I believe that when it says GPLv3 on the tin, I am meant to comply with the GPLv3, not some additional obligations enforced by a different license. But perhaps the situation is more nuanced than that?
If you mix BSD and MIT code, the result doesn't suddenly become one or the other, but rather a combination of both, right?
[1] https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/li...
but the situation for artifacts produced from the combinations of code under different licenses is messy in many ways (not just related to this cases)
like I wouldn't even rely on the "no further restrictions" clause being valid/legally binding and due to how it works pretty much any previous case trying to enforce it I'm aware of failed (but on a technicality _not_ applying here). (As an example for a invalid clause, the automatic contract voiding on violation clause is not valid in some(all?) EU countries!)
and then the definition of derived work, especially in the EU and with GPLv2, is much less ... clear ... then what the FSF likes to claim.
so I think you really would need to ask a lawyer in any situations where it does matter
What I don't quite understand though: It's true that the GPL does not have the additional obligations and therefore there is no conflict, but wouldn't the additional obligations be against the "you may not impose further restrictions" of the GPL?
- your code doesn't become GPL, it's GPL compatible
- the restriction are on you code not GPL code you put alongside it
- the restriction clause is on most situations legally meaningless (as a license with restrictions is a new license which happens to also be called GPL but the "no further restriction parts" would apply to the changed license with further restriction :) ), through this situation might be an exception to it
the main question here is how exactly this affects artifacts which are derived from both code bases
now this also loops back to the problem of definition of "derived work" (and how the FSF interpretation is probably NOT (fully) holding up in most EU countries, and yes this now touches on very country specific laws, not generic EU laws)
depending on this if you have an installer/archive which unpacks to a software containing artifacts which clearly are derived only from EUPL and some other artifacts which clearly are derived only from GPL this in practice would be a non issues I think
but what if you have a C header library with EUPL and another with GPL and due to link time optimizations they get so mangled up that under any possible interpretation of derived work it's derived from both ... then I have no idea what the artifact is licensed as ... probably thought the precedence clause GPL and as such no longer has the SaaS protections :/
anyway in most cases the potential legal trouble will lead to many companies only violating it if they would have done so anyway independent of any questionable loop holes, especially given that if the court can't come to a conclusion the intend of the contract writer is taking into considerations.
so if you don't lose money from them violating the license it probably is good enough (as in even if it where GPL, AGPL or similar you don't have much leverage)
and in cases where it commercially matters (e.g. they resell you software as a service while you also do it) you might also have some leverage due to unfair marked practice related laws. But should definitely consult a lawyer.
That is not how I understand it. You cannot simply unilaterally declare a license GPL compatible if it fundamentally isn't. The FSF is crystal clear that is does not consider the EUPL GPL compatible.
"By itself, it has a copyleft comparable to the GPL's, and incompatible with it." [1]
The trick the EUPL tries to pull off to make it work anyways is relicensing. What they call "outbound compatibility" is more similar to codified and enforced dual licensing than license compatibility in the traditional sense.
It only works if your code becomes GPL licensed and not merely compatible. That is where in my opinion the argument put forward in the EU commentary about the EUPL (and brought into discussion here in bcye's comment) breaks down.
"the restriction are on you code not GPL code you put alongside it"
The restrictions are on the users and outside the five exceptions outlined in the GPL and therefore not allowed under GPL. Same reason we need the AGPL as a separate license and cannot tack its additional clause onto the regular GPL as an additional restriction.
[1] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/european-union-public-li...
which is irrelevant
idk. why people thing it's a good idea to quote an organization as an authoritative source which
- has a long track record of very biased, and sometimes outright wrong, interpretations of what licenses mean in context of EU law
- and of systematically refusing to recognize many situations where it was shown their interpretation is wrong
- and in general ignoring the subtle but (for code licensing) far reaching differences between how law tends to work in EU countries and how it works in the US. Lets not even speak about countries with even more diverging legal systems.
- has political interest in the EUPL not being compatible (and to be clear I don't mean US politics, but like they have their ideals and goals and the EUPL really doesn't fit in them well as it can be seen as taking stewardship of free software licensing away from them, sure they never had that stewardship strictly speaking, but they do often act as if)
Like some things the FSF tends to systematically ignore in their arguments (in no particular order):
- the automatic license termination clause on contract term violations is void, as automatic termination clauses are illegal in all (most?) EU countries in all (most?) contexts. While in general good, this accidentally massively reduces the leverage someone has to enforce GPL and co.
- the "no further restrictions" part is in many legal contexts meaningless (through not the EUPL context)
- EU law doesn't have "viral" Licenses. It has a lot of clauses to promote software interoperability. Starkly oversimplified it can be saied that a lot of protections (including copyright and DRM) are either reduced or outright removed from interfaces. (still oversimplified) Due to this , a license can't just apply constraints on other software interfacing with it. It doesn't matter which mean of interfacing was used. Both static and dynamic linking are just means of interfacing software no different then a stdio pipe from a legal POV! Also license clauses can't overwrite this law, so it doesn't matter if the GPL says it works different it doesn't (in the EU). And that is VERY different to what the FSF claims how the GPL works. That doesn't mean a linking does never create derivative works, it can, it just doesn't do so in all situations. This is especially true if the software interfacing with your software is for accessibility. (^1)
- the link you posted about the FSF statement about the EUPL contains multiple factual wrong things and wording a lawyer would find badly choosen. Like EUPL does not allow re-licensing. What it allows is similar, sure, but not relicensing. It only applies to GPLv2 & GPLv3, not a hypothetical GPLv4, you can't do the trick they describe, actually doing that trick will most likely be judged as a form of contract hacking which can make your situation worse then "just" a contractual breach of a license term. (The exact details depend on the country tho.)
Honestly I'm not sure if their statements come from a unhealthy form of US centrism or other biases. But the moment you speak about copyright law in the EU I can only recommend to not at all trust any statements the FSF makes.
(^1): This funnily lead to a company officially creating hacks for games as "accessibility tools" (which to some degree they are). They still got sued into oblivion but the core of the law suite was unfair marked practices and legal/contract hacking as in their claim of producing "accessibility tools" is just make believe even through some minority of people might use them like that.
but then you code doesn't "become GPL" and GPL also has a compatibility clause and doesn't require other code to be GPL licensed, just to comply with certain constraints so it should be a non issue
so I guess it should be fine
(also funny side fact, if you take the GPL license then add a clause/restriction it's still valid as the the "no future restrictions" clause if applying to the GPL _with your changes_ because that is the license you have, only if you make a license which basically says "this code is GPL licensed (link to GPL) and following restrictions comply" instead of "this is a GPL with modifications" license does it matter))
This is the case if the 2 license aren't at odds. Usually one license is stricter and you have to adhere to that one for the combined work.
A counter-example is GPLv2 and Apache license. Those 2 are incompatible. This was fixed with GPLv3 and you can often upgrade to GPLv3.
So no, this won't allow you to relicense as GPLv2. But you can use GPLv2 code.
This is especially relevant if you have such code redistribution clauses.
Besides, I do not think GPLv2 allows you to distribute a combined work under EUPL, for it is listed as GPL-Incompatible. The combined work would have to be distributed under a license compatible with both EUPL and GPLv2.
AFAICT there is one aspect that seems to trip people when they come from a US-centric view of these licenses (including FSF): IIRC, in EU law a program can be made up of multiple licenses without each one affecting the other parts because the "virality" aspect of GPL (and similar aspects) does not work under the legal framework (because of how what is considered "combined work" under EU). There is an article[0] about why EUPL is not viral (both by choice and because of EU law) that explains it.
The How to use EUPL[1] document also spells it out:
---
But the definition of derivative works depends on the applicable law. If a covered work is modified, it becomes a derivative. But if the normal purpose of the work is to help producing other works (it is a library or a work tool) it would be abusive to consider everything that is produced with the tool as "derivative". Moreover, European law considers that linking two independent works for ensuring their interoperability is authorised regardless of their licence and therefore without changing it: no "viral" effect."
---
Note that in practice since 99.9% of the software in EU also goes outside the EU, including the US, the above doesn't matter much for (A)GPL software so even people (and companies) inside EU treat (A)GPL virality like in US. It is only when it comes to software meant to be used within EU alone (like government software) where the distinction matters.
[0] https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ne...
[1] https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ho...
It still does not explain the cognitive dissonance of the EUPL.
1. Source Merging or Statically Linking
Since the EU recognizes that these form derivative works the compatibility provisions in the EUPL are useless. At least as long as they are not interpreted as re-licensing.
2. Dynamically linking or IPC or network requests
If the EU is serious that dynamically linking is not derivative the compatibility provisions in EUPL are not necessary.
Realistically, open source licenses are legally powerless against corporations and governments, because they can hire more lawyers than you and rewrite the laws for themselves. We shouldn't play their game at all. The terms of open source licenses can be enforced socially. We can boycott, vote against, and shame violators. And we can be lenient towards other open source projects even if they use an incompatible license.
> Is the use of a compatible licence a "re-licensing"?
> No. The original code will stay covered by the EUPL. It is the combined work only that could be, when needed, covered by the compatible licence. In this framework, a combined work results from merging functional codes covered by two (or more) different licenses. The simple action of "linking" does not merge functional codes and in such case the various linked parts will keep their primary licences. This is resulting from the European law, since Directive 2009/24/EC states that interfaces (APIs, data structures etc.) needed for making two programs interoperable can be freely reproduced/used in the various source codes, as an exception to strict copyright rules.
> To be legitimate, the use of the compatibility clause must result from necessity: using it for the sole purpose of relicensing a copy of the original work would be a copyright infringement.
I was in an EU project around 2007-2008 via Nokia Research. No mention of this license. But at the time they did have a list of licenses that were OK for licensing software. License like GPL, Apache 2.0, etc.
I imagine that many missiles, drones and other such devices use free software. I wouldn't want any of my software to be part of these weapons.
[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence
[1] : https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl
[2] : https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/...
>The purpose of the European Commission is first of all to distribute its own software under the licence
The European Commission is the main executive branch of the European Union. The above sentence is like saying "the purpose of the White House is first of all to distribute software".
Gross.
Cannot stand companies stealing stuff and giving nothing back.
Thanks god they hate Copyleft licenses like the plaque.
Visually: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/li...
Matrix of licenses: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ma...
I think I asked a question about this 10 years ago on HN about MIT / BSD like license that is worldwide accepted, I thought it was Public Domain. Turns out the concept of Public Domain isn't universal. I remember it was Germany or some other EU countries that doesn't have it.
But if GPL / MIT / BSD have been widely accepted for 20+ years worldwide now and counting. Why do we need another one?
An AGPL-like license without the enmity that Stallman and GPL have.
IANAL, but I skimmed it and I see:
* a patent grant
* no extra clauses
* static/dynamic linking seems fine with compatible licenses (edit: unclear to me if proprietary can link (edit2: I find articles stating this is not viral and linking is always permitted, but there are section covering "essential functionality" in the license, so shim layers should not be allowed?))
* modifying for SaaS is redistributing
* clear list of compatible licenses (notably excluded: BSD/MIT/Apache)
* you can use both "this version" or "or later"
* trademarks not included
* no liability, except for "willful misconduct or damages directly caused to natural persons". Does not exclude from other law requirements.