14 ms·

European Union Public Licence (EUPL)

222 points by welovebunnies 1y ago

outadoc 1y ago
I don't see the actual source of the text mentioned on this non-official website, which makes it confusing. https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12 https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu...
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  You click the language you want at the top of the webpage, and it takes you to the text of the license. For example, https://eupl.eu/1.2/en/ https://eupl.eu/1.2/en/
  - Y-bar 1y ago
    Yup. This is a common pattern for official EU pages to link to the various translations of the actual text using the country code. Another example: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2380/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2380/oj
    - JdeBP 1y ago
      You could have chosen a more apt page for an official E.U. example. Like https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12 https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu... as given above. (-:
      - swiftcoder 1y ago
        That doesn't use the same pattern of linking languages by code in the header, however
        JdeBP 1y ago
        Nor does Y-bar's example from EUR-Lex, where the language list is below the catalogue information. It being right at the top in a banner of hyperlinks with 2-letter codes is not actually a part of the pattern. The E.U. Parliament and E.U. Court of Justice use drop-down menus with the full language names, for example. * https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/parliaments-powers/budgetary-powers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/parliamen... * https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/cs/parliaments-powers/budgetary-powers 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.
      - Y-bar 1y ago
        What’s the difference? They both follow the same pattern. What am I missing?
        JdeBP 1y ago
        Well one is a random directive from 2022 about radio equipment marketing; and the other, hyperlinked by outadoc in the first place, was the very text of the European Union Public Licence version 1.2 as PDF and text/plain formats in 23 languages, with the EUPL version 1.1 as PDF in 22 languages at the bottom of the page. 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 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.
        Y-bar 1y ago
        Today I learned that the "USB Charger Law" is some "random 2022 directive"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Equipment_Directive_(2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Equipment_Directive_(202...
    - bmacho 1y ago
      It is not an official EU page
- andreareina 1y ago
  It's not entirely clear, above the "What is the EUPL" headline are links to the license text in each language.
ljlolel 1y ago
Need more copyleft for freedom
- steve_gh 1y ago
  What additional freedoms do you want this licence to provide?
smartmic 1y ago
Martin Tournoi, the developer of GoatCounter, wrote an article explaining why he chose the EUPL licence for GoatCounter. It provides valuable insights and a useful comparison: https://www.arp242.net/license.html https://www.arp242.net/license.html
- pandemic_region 1y ago
  > GoatCounter For those that had never heard of it: GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a free donation-supported hosted service or self-hosted app. It aims to offer easy to use and meaningful privacy-friendly web analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo.
- graemep 1y ago
  He has modified EUPL (bad idea to modify licenses) so it recreates one of the problems he has with AGPL (that a lot of companies will not use software licensed under it). If anything EUPL is less attractive to those companies if they are outside the EU as it imposes EU jurisdiction. 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.
  - philipwhiuk 1y ago
    > bad idea to modify licenses Very annoying to modify without renaming.
  - zenmac 1y ago
    >If anything EUPL is less attractive to those companies if they are outside the EU as it imposes EU jurisdiction. 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?
merelysounds 1y ago
I was curious about differences between EUPL and GPL Affero, I found the following: > 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/news/eupl-or-gplv3-comparison-t https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ne...
- tpxl 1y ago
  I'm not a lawyer and have little experience reading legal text. I can't find the text of the license saying SaaS is covered. Can you point it out?
  - GeertJohan 1y ago
    The EUPL isn't as explicit as AGPL. > — ‘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.
- geokon 1y ago
  Where can you find a good description..? 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 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
  - adastra22 1y ago
steve_gh 1y ago
Looks very interesting. It clarifies a lot of things that for example the GPL leaves unsaid, due to the different legal framework. And it is good that it explicitly calls out the legal jurisdiction it sits under (EU). 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.
- trueismywork 1y ago
  The compatability clause is what it makes it useless though, because someone could take your EUPL and convert it to GPL, so EUPL software dies but GPL lives.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    Sure, just like the BSD and MIT and Apache licenses died, since they allow people to take the software and distribute it under the GPL.
    - trueismywork 1y ago
      No, there's a difference. BSD, MIT and Apache (permissive licenses) are generally used when the provider doesnt care how the end result is used. So, even if other people relicense their code containing Apache licensed part, it doesnt change the business model of that code. 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.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
serbuvlad 1y ago
Once again, the EU coming 30 years later to do something everyone else is doing, and everyone will credit them for some odd reason. 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.
- iamflimflam1 1y ago
  This is how good legislation works. 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.
- kalaksi 1y ago
  I don't think you actually know the history.
- mijoharas 1y ago
  > The dozens -> 2 simplifications occurred on the purely free market. That was also done by the European Commission[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
  - serbuvlad 1y ago
    That was not done by the European Commission. It was a document with no legal power. And it was an acknowledgment of an existing market trend. non-iPhones had already began converging on USB charging (including mini-USB and micro-USB) in the years before. 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.
unwind 1y ago
It took them the entire first section to not mention that it is a _software license_. 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: What is the EUPL? EUPL is an acronym for "European Union Public Licence". It is a software distribution license. 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.
- adastra22 1y ago
  I don’t understand. GPL is also a software license. Why is that bad association? What were you expecting this to be?
  - JdeBP 1y ago
    E.U. regulations cover all sorts of licences, from driving licences * https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?&uri=CELEX:32006L0126 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%3A52010XX0807%2802%29 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%3A32009L0100 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-agencies/digital-services/open-source-strategy-history/european-union-public-licence_en https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive...
  - unwind 1y ago
randomtoast 1y ago
Is there any known project that actually uses the EUPL?
- xandrius 1y ago
  GoatCounter: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter?tab=License-1-ov-file https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter?tab=License-1-ov-file
  - pabs3 1y ago
    Thats a modified version, see further up in the thread.
- arp242 1y ago
  There's a few, but not too many. See e.g. some package repos: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afreebsd%2Ffreebsd-ports+%22EUPL12%22+path%3AMakefile&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afreebsd%2Ffreebsd-ports+%... https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Avoid-linux%2Fvoid-packages+%22EUPL-1.2%22+path%3Asrcpkgs&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Avoid-linux%2Fvoid-package... https://github.com/search?q=repo%3ANixOS%2Fnixpkgs+%22EUPL12%22+path%3Apkgs%2Fby-name&type=code 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.
sampaul058 1y ago
[dead]
theboywho 1y ago
It’s worth mentioning that this has nothing to do with the European Union, as mentioned in the footer: > This website is not sponsored or endorsed by the European Commission or any other institution, body or agency of the European Union.
- badsectoracula 1y ago
  To clarify, it is the linked site has nothing to do with the EU, but the license itself (EUPL) has: https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive-agencies/digital-services/open-source-strategy-history/european-union-public-licence_en https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive... https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl
weinzierl 1y ago
I had to deal with it for work a little bit and maybe my conclusions are useful to others, so here they are [1]. - 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.
- mrweasel 1y ago
  Do you have any sense as to why or when I'd pick the EUPL, rather than just going for the GPLv3?
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    Some (government) clients demand it. Apart from that, no. On the other hand, if you want GPLv3 anyways the EUPL doesn't hurt much because of its outbound compatibility.
  - JdeBP 1y ago
    One interesting reason is that there are no official non-English versions of the GPL at all, the FSF (as it says itself) not having the means to ensure robust legal text in multiple languages, whereas the EUPL has official versions in 23 of the E.U.'s languages, the E.U. very much having the means to produce legal documents in tens of languages.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bramhaag 1y ago
Perhaps someone else can clarify this, but I've been cautious about using this license instead of AGPLv3, because even though it includes this clause to close the SaaS loophole: ‘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. It still allows someone to relicense your work under GPL-2.0-only and GPL-3.0-only (amongst others): ‘Compatible Licences’ according to Article 5 EUPL are: — GNU General Public License (GPL) v. 2, v. 3 Both these licenses have no such clause. Does this not make the attempt to close the SaaS loophole void? edit: some words from the FSF it gives recipients ways to relicense the work under the terms of other selected licenses, and some of those—the Eclipse Public License in particular—only provide a weaker copyleft. Thus, developers can't rely on this license to provide a strong copyleft. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2 To me, this seems very poorly thought out. I see no reason to use this license over AGPL (or even GPL).
- tinco 1y ago
  Yeah this is insane. This is basically what was already happening, i.e. cloud companies offering a Redis service under some generic name. It barely slows them down. I can't understand how legal counsel would not have objected to adding this clause, and who would push for such a clause? It effectively removes the innovation from it. Why choose EUPL over GPLv3 if it can just be relicensed?
  - arccy 1y ago
    right now Valkey is a separate project, not just "Redis service under some generic name"
    - tinco 1y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic. Valkey is literally a fork of Redis with a generic name.
bcye 1y ago
For people interested the Interoperable Europe Portal offers very detailed documentation on using and interpreting this license: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl
- ktosobcy 1y ago
  Do you know if there is any work on newer version of the licence that would make it more explicit?
promoterr 1y ago
[flagged]
Luker88 1y ago
Wonderful! 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.
jeremiahlee 1y ago
The compatibility clause seems to be confusing several commenters. There is official documentation explaining the license compatibility. Visually: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/licence-compatibility-permissivity-reciprocity-and-interoperability https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/li... Matrix of licenses: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/matrix-eupl-compatible-open-source-licences https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ma...
jillesvangurp 1y ago
Looks like it's a thing from 15-20 years ago. I've never come across this license in any project; so it doesn't look like it is widely used. It looks to me like this failed to get a lot of usage. 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.
- bjackman 1y ago
  Nothing on this page says what the license does or any reason why anyone should use it. So it's kinda unsurprising nobody adopted it.
  - JdeBP 1y ago
    I do not wish to diminish Javier Casares's effort here: but it is nonetheless the case that a system administrator's WWW site about the EUPL is not the primary controlling factor when it comes to adoption of the EUPL, any more than https://www.pastafarismo.es https://www.pastafarismo.es wholly determines the popularity of Pastafarianism. (-:
torcete 1y ago
I wish there was a public licence that stated something like: This software cannot be used for weapons or any weapon development activities. 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.
- timeon 1y ago
  Or one that cannot be used in fossil fuel industry.
  - zelphirkalt 1y ago
    Or (now gonna get creative here, to invent counterexamples of why this is not a good idea) one that cannot be used in software that is used to teach children about evolution!
- maxloh 1y ago
  If you restrict how users run your software, then it is not free software, by the definition of both the FSF and OSI. An anti-weaponization clause is no different from an anti-commercialism clause in this context.
- robjan 1y ago
  There are many licenses with mortality clauses but they are general not popular because the ambiguity and "supply chain risk" of having such a license in a dependency tree tends to limit adoption of any projects that use them.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  [flagged]
- Diti 1y ago
  What’s to prevent the Bad Guys from illegally using your code, while the Good Guys cannot and have to settle on an inferior solution to fight the Bad Guys?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ksec 1y ago
If EUPL is the GPL v3 for EU, is there similar one for MIT/ BSD / Apache ? 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?
redwood 1y ago
A good step. Would love to see something like this OSI approved and globally used as a next generation reasonable license that protects the next generation of open source software companies.
- Vinnl 1y ago
  It already is OSI approved (and isn't new): https://opensource.org/license/eupl-1-2 https://opensource.org/license/eupl-1-2
st3fan 1y ago
This website is not sponsored or endorsed by the European Commission or any other institution, body or agency of the European Union.
bmacho 1y ago
Why is the link pointing to a random dude's random interpretation, instead of the wiki[0], the official website[1], or the official pdf[2]? [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence [1] : https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl [2] : https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/attachment/eupl_v1.2_en.pdf https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/...
- bmacho 1y ago
  Why is he using the official EU flag https://eupl.eu/favicon/android-icon-192x192.png https://eupl.eu/favicon/android-icon-192x192.png (and a knock-off https://eupl.eu/eu.png https://eupl.eu/eu.png) if he is not the EU. Why is the website full of tracking. Gross.
- OtherShrezzing 1y ago
  A fairly poor interpretation at that.. FTA: >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".
  - mod50ack 1y ago
    This is really just a mistranslation. The author's native language seems to be Spanish. The Spanish word propósito can be translated as "purpose" or "intention." Here, it really means "intention."
KolibriFly 1y ago
What stands out is the focus on legal interoperability across the EU, not just code reuse. Makes sense for governments collaborating on digital infrastructure, though I imagine it's a nightmare for developers trying to navigate license compatibility in real-world projects
SuperMouse 1y ago
If you develop hardware also have a look at the "CERN Open Hardware Licence"
- KolibriFly 1y ago
  If you're doing open-source hardware and want to ensure improvements stay open
  - SuperMouse 1y ago
    Yes. All my OS projects have a strong Copyleft-clause. Cannot stand companies stealing stuff and giving nothing back. Thanks god they hate Copyleft licenses like the plaque.

222 points by welovebunnies 1y ago

I don't see the actual source of the text mentioned on this non-official website, which makes it confusing. https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12 https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu...

swiftcoder 1y ago
You click the language you want at the top of the webpage, and it takes you to the text of the license. For example, https://eupl.eu/1.2/en/ https://eupl.eu/1.2/en/
- Y-bar 1y ago
  Yup. This is a common pattern for official EU pages to link to the various translations of the actual text using the country code. Another example: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2380/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2380/oj
  - JdeBP 1y ago
    You could have chosen a more apt page for an official E.U. example. Like https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12 https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eu... as given above. (-:
    - swiftcoder 1y ago
      That doesn't use the same pattern of linking languages by code in the header, however
      - JdeBP 1y ago
        Nor does Y-bar's example from EUR-Lex, where the language list is below the catalogue information. It being right at the top in a banner of hyperlinks with 2-letter codes is not actually a part of the pattern. The E.U. Parliament and E.U. Court of Justice use drop-down menus with the full language names, for example. * https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/parliaments-powers/budgetary-powers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/parliamen... * https://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/cs/parliaments-powers/budgetary-powers 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.
    - Y-bar 1y ago
      What’s the difference? They both follow the same pattern. What am I missing?
      - JdeBP 1y ago
        Well one is a random directive from 2022 about radio equipment marketing; and the other, hyperlinked by outadoc in the first place, was the very text of the European Union Public Licence version 1.2 as PDF and text/plain formats in 23 languages, with the EUPL version 1.1 as PDF in 22 languages at the bottom of the page. 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 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.
        Y-bar 1y ago
        Today I learned that the "USB Charger Law" is some "random 2022 directive"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Equipment_Directive_(2022) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Equipment_Directive_(202...
  - bmacho 1y ago
    It is not an official EU page
andreareina 1y ago
It's not entirely clear, above the "What is the EUPL" headline are links to the license text in each language.

ljlolel 1y ago

Need more copyleft for freedom

steve_gh 1y ago
What additional freedoms do you want this licence to provide?

smartmic 1y ago

Martin Tournoi, the developer of GoatCounter, wrote an article explaining why he chose the EUPL licence for GoatCounter. It provides valuable insights and a useful comparison: https://www.arp242.net/license.html https://www.arp242.net/license.html

pandemic_region 1y ago
> GoatCounter For those that had never heard of it: GoatCounter is an open source web analytics platform available as a free donation-supported hosted service or self-hosted app. It aims to offer easy to use and meaningful privacy-friendly web analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics or Matomo.
graemep 1y ago
He has modified EUPL (bad idea to modify licenses) so it recreates one of the problems he has with AGPL (that a lot of companies will not use software licensed under it). If anything EUPL is less attractive to those companies if they are outside the EU as it imposes EU jurisdiction. 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.
- philipwhiuk 1y ago
  > bad idea to modify licenses Very annoying to modify without renaming.
- zenmac 1y ago
  >If anything EUPL is less attractive to those companies if they are outside the EU as it imposes EU jurisdiction. 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?

merelysounds 1y ago

I was curious about differences between EUPL and GPL Affero, I found the following: > 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/news/eupl-or-gplv3-comparison-t https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ne...

tpxl 1y ago
I'm not a lawyer and have little experience reading legal text. I can't find the text of the license saying SaaS is covered. Can you point it out?
- GeertJohan 1y ago
  The EUPL isn't as explicit as AGPL. > — ‘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.
geokon 1y ago
Where can you find a good description..? 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 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
- adastra22 1y ago

steve_gh 1y ago

Looks very interesting. It clarifies a lot of things that for example the GPL leaves unsaid, due to the different legal framework. And it is good that it explicitly calls out the legal jurisdiction it sits under (EU). 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.

trueismywork 1y ago
The compatability clause is what it makes it useless though, because someone could take your EUPL and convert it to GPL, so EUPL software dies but GPL lives.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  Sure, just like the BSD and MIT and Apache licenses died, since they allow people to take the software and distribute it under the GPL.
  - trueismywork 1y ago
    No, there's a difference. BSD, MIT and Apache (permissive licenses) are generally used when the provider doesnt care how the end result is used. So, even if other people relicense their code containing Apache licensed part, it doesnt change the business model of that code. 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.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

serbuvlad 1y ago

Once again, the EU coming 30 years later to do something everyone else is doing, and everyone will credit them for some odd reason. 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.

iamflimflam1 1y ago
This is how good legislation works. 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.
kalaksi 1y ago
I don't think you actually know the history.
mijoharas 1y ago
> The dozens -> 2 simplifications occurred on the purely free market. That was also done by the European Commission[0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_external_power_supply
- serbuvlad 1y ago
  That was not done by the European Commission. It was a document with no legal power. And it was an acknowledgment of an existing market trend. non-iPhones had already began converging on USB charging (including mini-USB and micro-USB) in the years before. 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.

unwind 1y ago

It took them the entire first section to not mention that it is a _software license_. 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: What is the EUPL? EUPL is an acronym for "European Union Public Licence". It is a software distribution license. 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.

adastra22 1y ago
I don’t understand. GPL is also a software license. Why is that bad association? What were you expecting this to be?
- JdeBP 1y ago
  E.U. regulations cover all sorts of licences, from driving licences * https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?&uri=CELEX:32006L0126 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%3A52010XX0807%2802%29 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%3A32009L0100 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-agencies/digital-services/open-source-strategy-history/european-union-public-licence_en https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive...
- unwind 1y ago

randomtoast 1y ago

Is there any known project that actually uses the EUPL?

xandrius 1y ago
GoatCounter: https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter?tab=License-1-ov-file https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter?tab=License-1-ov-file
- pabs3 1y ago
  Thats a modified version, see further up in the thread.
arp242 1y ago
There's a few, but not too many. See e.g. some package repos: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afreebsd%2Ffreebsd-ports+%22EUPL12%22+path%3AMakefile&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Afreebsd%2Ffreebsd-ports+%... https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Avoid-linux%2Fvoid-packages+%22EUPL-1.2%22+path%3Asrcpkgs&type=code https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Avoid-linux%2Fvoid-package... https://github.com/search?q=repo%3ANixOS%2Fnixpkgs+%22EUPL12%22+path%3Apkgs%2Fby-name&type=code 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.

sampaul058 1y ago

[dead]

theboywho 1y ago

It’s worth mentioning that this has nothing to do with the European Union, as mentioned in the footer: > This website is not sponsored or endorsed by the European Commission or any other institution, body or agency of the European Union.

badsectoracula 1y ago
To clarify, it is the linked site has nothing to do with the EU, but the license itself (EUPL) has: https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive-agencies/digital-services/open-source-strategy-history/european-union-public-licence_en https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive... https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl

weinzierl 1y ago

I had to deal with it for work a little bit and maybe my conclusions are useful to others, so here they are [1]. - 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.

mrweasel 1y ago
Do you have any sense as to why or when I'd pick the EUPL, rather than just going for the GPLv3?
- weinzierl 1y ago
  Some (government) clients demand it. Apart from that, no. On the other hand, if you want GPLv3 anyways the EUPL doesn't hurt much because of its outbound compatibility.
- JdeBP 1y ago
  One interesting reason is that there are no official non-English versions of the GPL at all, the FSF (as it says itself) not having the means to ensure robust legal text in multiple languages, whereas the EUPL has official versions in 23 of the E.U.'s languages, the E.U. very much having the means to produce legal documents in tens of languages.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bramhaag 1y ago

Perhaps someone else can clarify this, but I've been cautious about using this license instead of AGPLv3, because even though it includes this clause to close the SaaS loophole: ‘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. It still allows someone to relicense your work under GPL-2.0-only and GPL-3.0-only (amongst others): ‘Compatible Licences’ according to Article 5 EUPL are: — GNU General Public License (GPL) v. 2, v. 3 Both these licenses have no such clause. Does this not make the attempt to close the SaaS loophole void? edit: some words from the FSF it gives recipients ways to relicense the work under the terms of other selected licenses, and some of those—the Eclipse Public License in particular—only provide a weaker copyleft. Thus, developers can't rely on this license to provide a strong copyleft. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#EUPL-1.2 To me, this seems very poorly thought out. I see no reason to use this license over AGPL (or even GPL).

tinco 1y ago
Yeah this is insane. This is basically what was already happening, i.e. cloud companies offering a Redis service under some generic name. It barely slows them down. I can't understand how legal counsel would not have objected to adding this clause, and who would push for such a clause? It effectively removes the innovation from it. Why choose EUPL over GPLv3 if it can just be relicensed?
- arccy 1y ago
  right now Valkey is a separate project, not just "Redis service under some generic name"
  - tinco 1y ago
    I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic. Valkey is literally a fork of Redis with a generic name.

bcye 1y ago

For people interested the Interoperable Europe Portal offers very detailed documentation on using and interpreting this license: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl

ktosobcy 1y ago
Do you know if there is any work on newer version of the licence that would make it more explicit?

promoterr 1y ago

[flagged]

Luker88 1y ago

Wonderful! 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.

jeremiahlee 1y ago

The compatibility clause seems to be confusing several commenters. There is official documentation explaining the license compatibility. Visually: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/licence-compatibility-permissivity-reciprocity-and-interoperability https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/li... Matrix of licenses: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/matrix-eupl-compatible-open-source-licences https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/ma...

jillesvangurp 1y ago

Looks like it's a thing from 15-20 years ago. I've never come across this license in any project; so it doesn't look like it is widely used. It looks to me like this failed to get a lot of usage. 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.

bjackman 1y ago
Nothing on this page says what the license does or any reason why anyone should use it. So it's kinda unsurprising nobody adopted it.
- JdeBP 1y ago
  I do not wish to diminish Javier Casares's effort here: but it is nonetheless the case that a system administrator's WWW site about the EUPL is not the primary controlling factor when it comes to adoption of the EUPL, any more than https://www.pastafarismo.es https://www.pastafarismo.es wholly determines the popularity of Pastafarianism. (-:

torcete 1y ago

I wish there was a public licence that stated something like: This software cannot be used for weapons or any weapon development activities. 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.

timeon 1y ago
Or one that cannot be used in fossil fuel industry.
- zelphirkalt 1y ago
  Or (now gonna get creative here, to invent counterexamples of why this is not a good idea) one that cannot be used in software that is used to teach children about evolution!
maxloh 1y ago
If you restrict how users run your software, then it is not free software, by the definition of both the FSF and OSI. An anti-weaponization clause is no different from an anti-commercialism clause in this context.
robjan 1y ago
There are many licenses with mortality clauses but they are general not popular because the ambiguity and "supply chain risk" of having such a license in a dependency tree tends to limit adoption of any projects that use them.
TiredOfLife 1y ago
[flagged]
Diti 1y ago
What’s to prevent the Bad Guys from illegally using your code, while the Good Guys cannot and have to settle on an inferior solution to fight the Bad Guys?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ksec 1y ago

If EUPL is the GPL v3 for EU, is there similar one for MIT/ BSD / Apache ? 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?

redwood 1y ago

A good step. Would love to see something like this OSI approved and globally used as a next generation reasonable license that protects the next generation of open source software companies.

Vinnl 1y ago
It already is OSI approved (and isn't new): https://opensource.org/license/eupl-1-2 https://opensource.org/license/eupl-1-2

st3fan 1y ago

This website is not sponsored or endorsed by the European Commission or any other institution, body or agency of the European Union.

bmacho 1y ago

Why is the link pointing to a random dude's random interpretation, instead of the wiki[0], the official website[1], or the official pdf[2]? [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence [1] : https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl [2] : https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/attachment/eupl_v1.2_en.pdf https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/custom-page/...

bmacho 1y ago
Why is he using the official EU flag https://eupl.eu/favicon/android-icon-192x192.png https://eupl.eu/favicon/android-icon-192x192.png (and a knock-off https://eupl.eu/eu.png https://eupl.eu/eu.png) if he is not the EU. Why is the website full of tracking. Gross.
OtherShrezzing 1y ago
A fairly poor interpretation at that.. FTA: >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".
- mod50ack 1y ago
  This is really just a mistranslation. The author's native language seems to be Spanish. The Spanish word propósito can be translated as "purpose" or "intention." Here, it really means "intention."

KolibriFly 1y ago

What stands out is the focus on legal interoperability across the EU, not just code reuse. Makes sense for governments collaborating on digital infrastructure, though I imagine it's a nightmare for developers trying to navigate license compatibility in real-world projects

SuperMouse 1y ago

If you develop hardware also have a look at the "CERN Open Hardware Licence"

KolibriFly 1y ago
If you're doing open-source hardware and want to ensure improvements stay open
- SuperMouse 1y ago
  Yes. All my OS projects have a strong Copyleft-clause. Cannot stand companies stealing stuff and giving nothing back. Thanks god they hate Copyleft licenses like the plaque.