Request for approval: EUPL (European Union Public Licence)

[Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel]

Bruce,
Thanks for the clarification.

It is true that the question of applicable law is sometimes a nigthmare
in international relationships. This is the reason why the EUPL fix it
clearly. And if it is Belgian law, why would it be worse than any other?


Responding to your request about my relationship with IDABC, I am in
contact with IDA/IDABC for delivering consultancy since the year 2000.
This is done through service contracts between the EC and Unisys Belgium
- after open & public procurement processes. I am author of, or
participate in: 
- Study into the use of OSS in public sector (2000 - 2001);
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2623#study 
- Study "Pooling Open Source Software" (2002);
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2623#feasibility 
- IDABC Open Source Observatory (from 2004 ...)
- Study on the effect on the development of the information society of
European public bodies making their own software available as open
source (2007) http://www.publicsectoross.info 
- Advises on EUPL and collaboration between public sector and Open
Source developers; 
- Realisation of the OSOR - Open Source Repository (ongoing - will be
on-line as from July 2008)  

For the present Request for approval, I act on behalves of the R4eGov
FP6 project developer's community, which would like to see EUPL on OSI
list (see the attached letter of Peter Judge).
 
Kind regards,  

Patrice
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Perens [mailto:bruce at perens.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 5:42 PM
To: Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel
Cc: License Review
Subject: Re: Request for approval: EUPL (European Union Public Licence)

Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel wrote:
> I hope that you will not add an 11th. "fordian" condition to OSD
No. But my concern is that choice-of-law provisions are meant to make 
things clear but often have the opposite effect. My company has provided

service to an EU project (the European Internet Accessibility 
Observatory, just concluded) for the past three years. Our customer is a

university in Norway (not in the EU, but it is leader of a team of 
universities working on an EU grant), I am in the U.S. Universities in 
other nations are involved. The provision as it exists just adds Belgian

law to an already large mix.

Can you explain your relationship to IDABC, please?

I think that some language about future changes being required not to 
reduce rights would be acceptable.

The word "reasonable" has been much abused in the context of IPR policy:

most notably in the "reasonable and non-discriminatory" IPR licensing 
policy of some standards organizations, where they never define what is 
reasonable or non-discriminatory and thus leave the door open for any 
amount of unreasonableness and discrimination, particularly against Open

Source.

Regarding the address: if it is required in some places and not others, 
the text should say something generic about compliance with information 
required by law without having it mention specific requirements such as 
the address.

Note that a FAQ is not part of the license, a court would probably not 
consider language in a FAQ to be binding.

    Thanks

    Bruce