Request for approval: EUPL (European Union Public Licence)

[Matthew Flaschen]

John Cowan wrote:
> Fortunately, there are no totalitarian states at present, only democratic
> and authoritarian ones.

I think the distinction between a totalitarian and authoritarian state
is subtle at best.  Regardless, I don't think the license should restate
the contact info regulation.

>> It's fine to specify EU law if the licensor is in Europe.  But 
>> otherwise, it should be the law of the licensor's residence.
> 
> -1
> 
> This falls afoul of the same problem.  X releases an original work within
> the EU; Y releases a derivative from some benighted country where the
> EUPL is invalid.  Y's code is unfree.
> 
> We have consistently accepted licenses that required a particular choice
> of law.  We shouldn't change that now.

I'm not saying we should /insist/ on having no, or a more flexible,
choice of law.  You are correct that OSI has approved both types of license.

However, I do strongly prefer not to have choice of law.  It makes the
license less reusable, because it's burdensome to have to use European
(in this case) law when neither party is in Europe.

Even with choice of law, a country can always ignore the clause, so
that's hardly a perfect solution.

Matt Flaschen