Re: EUPL draft
* Rich Walker cites the EUPL:
> Distribution and/or Communication: any act of selling, giving, lending,
> renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making
> available, on-line or off-line, copies of the Work at the disposal of
> any other physical or legal person.
New licenses should specify if this includes internal distribution.
(This is a very practical concern. Many people think that internal
distribution of private modifications should not be encumbered, and
publication of such modifications should not be required..)
> Those rights can be exercised on any media, supports and formats,
> whether now known or later invented, as far as the applicable law
> permits so. In the countries where moral rights apply, the Licensor
> waives his right to exercise his moral right to the extent allowed by
> law in order to make effective the licence of the economic rights here
> above listed.
Interesting aspect. Most licenses lack such clauses, although they
are very desirable.
I'm not sure if it's necessary to mention Contributors in this
section, too.
> 5. Obligations of the Licensee
> The grant of the rights mentioned above is subject to some restrictions
> and obligations imposed on the Licensee. Those obligations are the
> following:
>
> Attribution right: the Licensee shall keep intact all copyright,
> patent or trademarks notices and all notices that refer to the Licence
> and to the disclaimer of warranties. The Licensee must include a copy of
> such notices and a copy of the Licence with every copy of the Work he
> distributes and/or communicates. The Licensee must cause any Derivative
> Work to carry prominent notices stating that he modified the work,
> indicating the name and contact information of the Contributor.
The language is not gender-neutral, which is rather strange for an
official document.
This attribution requirement is quite far-reaching and probably
applies to things like About dialogs. But the GPL precedent suggests
that this is DFSG-compatible.
> Copyleft clause: If the Licensee distributes and/or communicates copies
> of the Original Works or Derivative Works based upon the Original Work,
> this Distribution and/or Communication will be done under the terms of
> this EUPL Licence. The Licensee (becoming Licensor) cannot offer or
> impose any additional terms or conditions on the Work or Derivative Work
> that alter or restrict the terms of the Licence.
Oh, so it's likely you can't relicense under the GPL. Let's see...
> Legal Protection: This Licence does not grant permission to use the
> trade names, trademarks, service marks, or names of the Licensor, except
> as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of
> the Work and reproducing the content of the copyright notice.
What about trademarks in program and command names? Sometimes
renaming the commands severely impacts the usefulness of the program
(think Postscript or "ssh").
> 6. Chain of Authorship
> The original Licensor warrants that the copyright in the Original Work
> granted hereunder is owned by him and that he has the power and
> authority to grant the Licence. [...]
> 7. Disclaimer of Warranty
> The Work is provided under the Licence on an "as is" basis and without
> warranties of any kind concerning the Work, [...]
These two clauses obviously contradict each other. The first one
probably is GPL-incompatible.
> 8. Disclaimer of Liability
> Except to the extent required by applicable law, the Licensor will in no
> event be liable for any direct or indirect, material or moral, damages
> of any kind, [...]
This makes clause 6 rather pointless.
> 10. Acceptance of the Licence
> The provisions of this Licence can be accepted by clicking on an icon "I
> agree" placed under the bottom of a window displaying the text of this
> Licence or by affirming consent in any other similar way, in accordance
> with rules of applicable law. Clicking on that icon indicates your clear
> and irrevocable acceptance of this Licence and all of its terms and
> conditions. [...]
I wasn't aware that the EU promotes click-through licenses. Is this
really an official document?
This clause is really strange because it doesn't apply to source-code
distribution. It also lacks the usual requirement that Licensors
offer the Distribution or Communication only after a click-through
license has been agreed to. The latter would imply that Debian cannot
distribute the software. Whether it's actually non-free under the
DFSG may be subject to debate, but our software distribution framework
simply lacks this click-through capability.
> 11. Information to the public
> In case of any Distribution and/or Communication of the Work by You (for
> example, by offering to download the Work from a website) the
> distribution channel or media (for example, the website) must provide
> the following information to the public:
>
> your name, as new Licensor providing the Work,
>
> your geographic and electronic address,
>
> where the Licensor is registered in a trade or similar public register, [...]
This clause is probably not compliant with the spirit of the GPL. If
this is really a EU license, the authors should be aware that a EU
Directive already requires that the Distribution or Communication is
offered in conjunction with most of the data that is explicitly
required here.
Of course, such a requirement is GPL-incompatible.
> 12. Termination of the Licence
> The Licence and the rights granted hereunder will terminate
> automatically upon any breach by the Licensee of the terms of the
> Licence.
Very likely incompatible with clause 4 and existing EU law
(first sale doctrine or equivalent).
> 14. Jurisdiction
> Any litigation resulting from the interpretation of this license,
> arising between the European Commission, as a Licensor, and any
> Licensee, will be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of
> Justice, as laid down in article 238 of the Treaty establishing the
> European Community.
Choice of venue is GPL-incompatible. It might be non-free according
to the DFSG as well (this is still subject to debate AFAIK).
> 15. Applicable Law
> This License shall be governed by the law of the European Union country
> where the Licensor resides or has his registered office. This License
> shall be governed by the Belgian Law if a litigation arises between the
> European Commission, as a Licensor, and any Licensee. This License shall
> also be governed by the Belgian Law if the Licensor has no residence or
> registered office inside a European Union country.
Choice of law is also problematic.
So this license is certainly on the right track. But we really don't
need yet another copyleft license which is not GPL-compatible, do we?
Do you know a contact address to which these concerns can be
submitted?
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