Request for approval: EUPL (European Union Public Licence)

[Bruce Perens]

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