The European Union Public Licence (EUPL)

Abstract

This paper details the origin and main characteristics of the European Union Public Licence (EUPL), an OSI-approved free or open source software licence, copyrighted by the European Union. It focuses on the new version 1.2 of the EUPL that has been drafted in 2013, which the European Commission reports will be published before the end of the year. However, comments are relevant for the version 1.1 as well. 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. The operation of this copyleft component of the licence is probably its most specific aspect, sometimes wrongly understood as a possibility for “relicensing”. This is therefore especially developed in this paper.