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

#1

Post by marc136 » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 1:24 PM UTC

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-12

I 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-v12

Are there key things that I'm missing? Are there other problems than the ones nodemailer had?

Would love to hear some opinions.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#2

Post by andris9 » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 1:34 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#3

Post by palata » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 2:46 PM UTC

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?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#4

Post by palata » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 2:54 PM UTC

andris9 wrote: post #2

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 li…

> This gives the opportunity to use such a library without issues, and the end user never knows about these tools anyway.

Why not something like MPLv2 then? It does give the opportunity to use the library without issues, the only constraint (compared to e.g. MIT) being that changes to the library needs to be distributed. If you don't change it, then it's pretty much like MIT.

To me, MPLv2 is superior to MIT in the sense that it gives developers leverage against their management. If I tell my manager "I fixed a bug in this MIT library, can I contribute it upstream?", the answer is often "let's discuss that later" or "hmm we'll have to see with legal" or "are you sure that it is not a competitive advantage for us?". In my experience, managers never see value in contributing anything back.

Now if the library is MPLv2, I can use it just like MIT, but if I fix a bug I can tell my manager: "it is MPLv2, which means that I must distribute my changes. Are you fine with me contributing them upstream?". Again in my experience, the manager will just say "if you have to, then do it". Even though (AFAIU) MPLv2 does not enforce contributing upstream: you just have to distribute the changes with the software (to your customers). But managers generally don't know anything about licenses, so "contributing upstream" is a good-enough approximation.

TL;DR: with MPLv2, the developer has leverage to bring their changes upstream. With MIT, the manager can happily keep the changes proprietary. I am a developer, I want to open source my code. Therefore I want copyleft.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#5

Post by brudgers » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 6:17 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#6

Post by marc136 » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 8:53 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #5

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-stan…

If I understand you correctly, your advice is that EUPL is an unknown/obscure license and you would not choose it for that reason?

Thanks for the good luck wishes, but I don't intend to throw money towards enforcing the license at all. I mostly don't want to be liable for code that I open source.

And restricting it to EU would solve the problem that e.g. WTFPL or UNLICENSE have with countries that don't acknowledge public domain.

This is more a question out of curiosity for me, and many people react allergic to viral licenses, GNU or RMS so I was looking for alternatives because I also heard there were issues with CC-share-alike.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#7

Post by marc136 » Sun, Mar 03, 2024, 9:03 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #3

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?

I'm not sure if I understand correctly.

For me, it is mostly about "sharing the code" as in: I put it somewhere and anyone who wants can use it. But if they adapt or remix it, they should also use a free license (ideally contribute back to my project).

> in the sense that it does not prevent tivoization?

I'm not sure, but I guess it does not protect against tivoization because if I were to distribute an executable or library, that could be used on a blackbox with proprietary code without them requiring to open their own code.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#8

Post by brudgers » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 2:19 AM UTC

marc136 wrote: post #6

brudgers wrote: post #5

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-stan…

If I understand you correctly, your advice is that EUPL is an unknown/obscure license and you would not choose it for that reason? Thanks for the good luck wishes, but I don't intend to throw money towards enforcing the license at all. I mostly don't want to be liable for code that I open source. And restricting it to EU would solve the problem that e.g. WTFPL or UNLICENSE have with countries that don't acknowledge p…

I would not choose it for two reasons:

1. The bad actor case: On my side of the equation there is no practical difference between licenses. Enforcing one or the other has the same legal costs…either I lawyer up and enforce whatever license I used or I don’t.

2. The good actor case: When users are unfamiliar with a license they are less likely to use it (or in a business context less likely to be allowed to use it).

By the way, CC-0 is an alternative to the public domain.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#9

Post by palata » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 11:34 AM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #5

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-stan…

Can't we reasonably assume that an official European license is not exactly "obscure"?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about EUPL in comparison to other copyleft licences?

#10

Post by palata » Mon, Mar 04, 2024, 11:38 AM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #8

marc136 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand you correctly, your advice is that EUPL is an unknown/obscure license and you would not choose it for that reason? Thanks for the good luck wishes, but I don't intend to throw money towards enforcing the license at all. I mostly don't want to be liable for code that I open source. And restricting it to EU would solve the problem that e.g. WTFPL or UNLICENSE have with countries that don't acknowledge p…

I would not choose it for two reasons: 1. The bad actor case: On my side of the equation there is no practical difference between licenses. Enforcing one or the other has the same legal costs…either I lawyer up and enforce whatever license I used or I don’t. 2. The good actor case: When users are unfamiliar with a license they are less likely to use it (or in a business context less likely to be allowed to use it). B…

> 2. The good actor case: When users are unfamiliar with a license they are less likely to use it (or in a business context less likely to be allowed to use it).

Businesses typically don't want copyleft because they don't want to share anything (even if that is counter-productive). If more codebases used copyleft, I'm convinced that more businesses would know how to deal with it.

My second thought here is that I don't like this "people won't use is" blackmail. I write software that I share for free, I am entitled to choose under which conditions you can use it. If you can't be arsed to spend the time needed to understand my conditions (and the EUPL is not exactly a 200-pages long license), then don't use it. It's not like you were going to pay me anyway, right?