The European Union Public Licence (EUPL)

Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz

Abstract


The EUPL is an OSI-approved free or open source software licence, copyrighted by the European Union. It was drafted by the Commission as from 2005 and launched in January 2007 as a share alike (or copyleft) style licence. At the end of 2012, about 500 projects have been licensed under the EUPL by European institutions, Member States and the private sector. A new version 1.2 of the EUPL has been drafted in 2013 and the European Commission reported that it will be published before the end of the year 2013. What makes the EUPL unique is its multilingual working value, specific warranties, references to the Court of Justice of the European Union and its provisions related to licence compatibility, making its copyleft “variable†for facilitating interoperability.


Keywords


Software licensing; Open source software; Copyright; Copyleft licence; Interoperability; Compatible licence; Derivative work; European Interoperability Framework;

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