What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

Question

How do people here think about the EUPL, especially when compared to licenses like GPL, LGPL, AGPL, MPL,...?https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/eupl-text-eupl-12I saw e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37160740 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14053129 but they don't contain discussions.I like that:1. I can read it in my native legalese and not just the English one.2. That it is fully translated into 23 languages (and not in a "this-is-not-the-real-legal-text" way), but each is binding.3. That it was created for the jurisdiction where I live, and not just for the US judicial system.4. That linking to my program does not force the other program to use my licence, but using my code enforces that product to use a copyleft licence. Real explanation on https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/understanding-eupl-v12Are there key things that I'm missing? Are there other problems than the ones nodemailer had?Would love to hear some opinions.

patemmschmitz · Accepted Answer

You could add: - the EUPL, like the AGPL, covers all distribution modes (remote or SaaS...) - the EUPL includes a CDO (contributor declaration of origin) - the EUPL specifies more "realistic" liability exclusions (at a time the CRA Cyber Resilience Act is discussed it is better to face some potential issues: total liability exclusions, like in the MIT license are simply invalid). - the EUPL is compatible with other "copyleft" licenses because it allows combined derivatives to be distributed under these (without giving up fundamental obligations of sharing and reciprocity, as none of the compatible licenses is in conflict withe the EUPL on these points. - the EUPL is not "born in the USA" but is definitely not an "obscure" license. The upcoming Interoperable Europe Act states that all EU interconnected open source portals shall propose it (this is not exclusive of other licenses of course, i.e. if the GPL or AGPL is inherited). - the EUPL philosophy was recently explained in a paper "The seven pillars of Wisdom": (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/discussion/a...) This is just a discussion paper. You are welcome!!!

andris9 · Answer

Nodemailer author here. I now publish all my libraries/tools (like Nodemailer) under some permissive license (MIT, MIT-0, ISC). This gives the opportunity to use such a library without issues, and the end user never knows about these tools anyway. For example if I build a OSS software and commercial software that both use such library, then it is easier to manage it under permissive license - I don't want copyleft licenses turning up in my commercial software even if I'm the owner.For OSS applications, I use EUPL (eg. https://wildduck.email/) or AGPL copyleft licenses. The license does not stop anyone using it as an application, but at the same time people are not free to copy, rename and sell it either.

brudgers · Answer

There are two meaningful difference between licenses.
One is the size of the pile of money you are willing to pay lawyers to enforce it. Because there is no software license enforcement agency that is going to sue neerdowells on your behalf.
The other is excluding good actors who don't want to deal with it. Obscure licenses increase the number of good actors who will forego using the software because parsing non-standard licenses is work and raises questions about the competence and/or motives of the developer.
Obscure licenses don't protect users. Good luck.

palata · Answer

I had never heard about it, but it seems nice! Am I right that it is really about "sharing" the code and not so much about "allowing to modify", in the sense that it does not prevent tivoization? Or did I miss that part?