European Union Public Licence

The European Union Public Licence ( EUPL ) is published by the European Union copyleft license designed for free software licensing. It is explicitly compatible with the GPLv2, but was adapted to European law and translated into the 22 languages ​​of the EU Member States since January 2008.

The first edition (1.0) was approved on January 9, 2007. The latest version is version 1.1 and was released by the European Commission on 9 January 2009. The license is available in the 22 official languages ​​of the European Union. All language versions are alike. Since March 2009, the EUPL v.1.1 is OSI certified.

This license should be used for the distribution of software in the context of the IDABC program ( " Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens" ) originally, being (due to their generic scope ) for use by software is suitable developer. Your main goal is to focus on the consistency with the copyright in the 27 Member States of the European Union, while maintaining compatibility with popular open source software licenses such as the GNU General Public License. The first mentioned IDABC software packages are the CIRCA groupware, IPM and the eLink G2G, G2C, G2B specification software. Since the opening of the European Open Source Observatory and Repository in October 2008 a set of software has been registered, particularly by the European authorities under the EUPL. End of August 2010 was one of the news service OSOR 49 projects on SourceForge and another 50 projects in the own hosting portal " OSOR Forge " (today JOINUP.eu ) that have been released under this License.

Comparison with other open source licenses

The license is the first by an international committee approved open source license by the European Union. A second objective of this License is to provide an open- source license in the 22 official languages ​​of the European Union. At the same time, it should ensure that the existing copyright laws of the individual 27 Member States of the European Union are taken into account. The European Union wishes to allay real or perceived legal uncertainties, as they exist as at other open source licenses such as the GNU General Public License by a software license is created taking into account the European Union's law. Therefore, the license was developed in consideration of other open source licenses. In particular, it is possible to release the works in question under the following licenses ::

Possible upgrades

After the EUPL v.1.1, the European Commission may publish other language versions and new versions of the EUPL, insofar as is necessary and reasonable, without reducing the scope of the rights under the license. Future upgrades are not automatically applicable if a software under the EUPL has been 1.1 released. New rules to close loopholes and open up alternative uses.

Application Examples

  • WollMux - A developed in the framework of the Munich Linux migration project LiMux software for managing templates and documents form the city administration.
  • Portable Signer - A program written by the magistrate of Vienna Programme for signing created with OpenOffice PDF files.
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