4 ms·

It looks very LGPL-like in spirit. It's hard to know if you can use it in something commercial or not, though. The pessimistic interpretation is that if you u

It looks very LGPL-like in spirit. It's hard to know if you can use it in something commercial or not, though. The pessimistic interpretation is that if you use it your software becomes a "derived work" of the library, in the same way your Harry Potter fan fiction is a derived work of Harry Potter. You probably don't want your commercial software under this license because it commits you to (among other things) granting royalty-free licenses to all patents, and settling all court cases in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. The optimistic assumption is that no, that would never happen, your product will not be a derived work because using the library with it is "mere aggregation." But the license doens't clearly spell out what is a dervied work and what is not-- there is not even the discussion of mere aggregation that the GPL has. The license also has the "death penalty" clause that the GPL does, which means that your license to use it can be permanently terminated if you are found to have violated any part of it. So basically, I would say, stay away. And people in open source projects should stay away too, for the same reasons... you don't want this fighting it out with the existing open source license of your project.

true_religion 10y ago
At work, if I see a product that offers a commercial licence and an copyleft licence, I immediately buy it. The licence costs are always trivial compared to the department's revenue and budget, and it completely avoids any hashing over "will we violate copyleft if we do X". Now the answer is always "we bought it, its ours". At home, I just use the copyleft version. My personal blog engine is open source, and on github Anything else I make, I don't mind open sourcing if it comes to it. 700 Euro a year is trivial. We've spent more money on drinks while talking about licensing our own product.
- incompatible 10y ago
  Now the answer is always "we bought it, its ours". I didn't realise commercial licenses are always so generous and easy to use.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    I'll clarify. I mean that software that's dual-licenced, usually grants unlimited usage within the organization. Essentially you bought it, so it's yours to do with as you wish---though you can't duplicate it and give it to others on its own, you have to bundle it with your product. If the licence is more restrictive than that, then it is likely the business will fail because if we have to jump through hoops, we might as well (a) use another product, cost isn't a factor or (b) use the copyleft licence and hire lawyers.
badsectoracula 10y ago
> It looks very LGPL-like in spirit. It's hard to know if you can use it in something commercial or not, though. You can, as much as you can use any copyleft license - ie. you have to make the source code of the files available. One thing to keep in mind though is that in EU the distinction between strong and weak copyleft (ie. GPL vs LGPL) probably doesn't exist - it hasn't been explicitly proven in court, but there is a past case which shows that the most likely interpretation is that there isn't such a distinction and in EU merely linking does not create a derivative work (you can read about this in this page from the official EC EUPL site https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/why-viral-licensing-ghost https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/why-viral-li... which also explains some issues the current wordings have and why the case is not 100% clear). You can read more about EUPL and how it can be used here: http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/91/164 http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/91/164
- reality_czech 10y ago
  It seems like they should publish a directive clarifying this, if they really want to make it clear. In any case, viral licensing exists in the US, which is enough to make the EUPL toxic to nearly all companies.

true_religion 10y ago

At work, if I see a product that offers a commercial licence and an copyleft licence, I immediately buy it. The licence costs are always trivial compared to the department's revenue and budget, and it completely avoids any hashing over "will we violate copyleft if we do X". Now the answer is always "we bought it, its ours". At home, I just use the copyleft version. My personal blog engine is open source, and on github Anything else I make, I don't mind open sourcing if it comes to it. 700 Euro a year is trivial. We've spent more money on drinks while talking about licensing our own product.

incompatible 10y ago
Now the answer is always "we bought it, its ours". I didn't realise commercial licenses are always so generous and easy to use.
- true_religion 10y ago
  I'll clarify. I mean that software that's dual-licenced, usually grants unlimited usage within the organization. Essentially you bought it, so it's yours to do with as you wish---though you can't duplicate it and give it to others on its own, you have to bundle it with your product. If the licence is more restrictive than that, then it is likely the business will fail because if we have to jump through hoops, we might as well (a) use another product, cost isn't a factor or (b) use the copyleft licence and hire lawyers.

badsectoracula 10y ago

> It looks very LGPL-like in spirit. It's hard to know if you can use it in something commercial or not, though. You can, as much as you can use any copyleft license - ie. you have to make the source code of the files available. One thing to keep in mind though is that in EU the distinction between strong and weak copyleft (ie. GPL vs LGPL) probably doesn't exist - it hasn't been explicitly proven in court, but there is a past case which shows that the most likely interpretation is that there isn't such a distinction and in EU merely linking does not create a derivative work (you can read about this in this page from the official EC EUPL site https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/why-viral-licensing-ghost https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/why-viral-li... which also explains some issues the current wordings have and why the case is not 100% clear). You can read more about EUPL and how it can be used here: http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/91/164 http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/91/164

reality_czech 10y ago
It seems like they should publish a directive clarifying this, if they really want to make it clear. In any case, viral licensing exists in the US, which is enough to make the EUPL toxic to nearly all companies.