The Free Software Foundation classifies licenses as free software, copyleft and compatible with the GNU GPL (or not). FSF was prompt to recognise the EUPL as a “Free software license” and “copyleft”.
But at the same time, the FSF was reluctant. Without daring to say it openly, it looks clear that it was up to them to forge licenses, not states or governmental organisations like the European Union. This initial reluctance remains in their comments. What exactly do they say to their followers about EUPL-1.2?
First, FSF classifies the EUPL as a GPL-Incompatible Free Software License! This looks curious indeed, since the EUPL is expressly compatible with GPL-2.0 and GPL-3.0… But lets’ explore their comments:
Section1:
(The EUPL) is a free software license. By itself, it has a copyleft comparable to the GPL's, and incompatible with it. However, it gives recipients ways to relicense the work under the terms of other selected licenses, and some of those—the Eclipse Public License in particular—only provide a weaker copyleft. Thus, developers can't rely on this license to provide a strong copyleft.
Sentences 1 & 2 of this comment ignore some legal realities: the EUPL copyleft is not really “comparable”, because not “strong copyleft” as the GPLs want to be, simply because the European law invalidates the famous FSF (FAQs) theory that “static or dynamic linking produces a combined derivative”: European law promotes interoperability and not “virality”.
Sentence 3: “However, it gives recipients ways to relicense the work under the terms of other selected licenses,“ is misleading. “Relicensing” the original work is not permitted. What is permitted is to reuse the covered source code (= copy it and merge it) in another project licensed under a compatible license, and to continue the distribution of this other project under the compatible licence. But this is not a global relicensing (= changing the license) of the original work “as is”.
“and some of those—the Eclipse Public License in particular—only provide a weaker copyleft. Thus, developers can't rely on this license to provide a strong copyleft.”
Knowing the uncertain validity of the “strong copyleft” theory in European law, we will not detail to what degree the copyleft of the EPL or MPL is “weaker” or “more moderate/reasonable”, but in case a combined derivative may, after contributed/enlarged with EUPL covered code, continue to be distributed under its original EPL or MPL license, the EUPL text fixes rules: it is in case the compatible license conflicts with the EUPL that it will prevail, and none of the compatible licenses rejects the main EUPL obligations: make the source code reciprocally available, even if distribution is done remotely.
The following FSF comments are even more surprising:
The EUPL allows relicensing to GPLv2 only and GPLv3 only, because those licenses are listed as two of the alternative licenses that users may convert to. It also, indirectly, allows relicensing to GPL version 3 or any later version, because there is a way to relicense to the CeCILL v2, and the CeCILL v2 gives a way to relicense to any version of the GNU GPL.
First the FSF agrees that the EUPL is compatible with both the GPL-2.0 and 3.0 (using again the very ambiguous terms “relicensing” and “convert”) but apparently, this is not enough for the FSF: it should be compatible with the GPL-3.0-or-later, meaning i.e. a non-existing GPL-4.
The EUPL compatible licenses appendix states that the European Commission may update the list to cover later versions. Yes, “may” but not “must” wrote us Mr. Stallman, requesting right now a blank check from the Commission for hypothetic future versions. The same RMS does not care either about the formal guarantees given by the text of the EUPL, stating that the European Commission “may publish new versions of this Licence or updated versions of the Appendix, so far this is required and reasonable, without reducing the scope of the rights granted by the Licence” (meaning i.e. that granted compatibility will never be reduced in hypothetic new EUPL versions).
Last, to operate its famous “relicensing” or “conversion”, the FSF provides the recipe of a real tinkering (what in French is called “Bidouillage”), encouraging followers to commit what could be a real copyright infringement:
To do this two-step relicensing, you need to first write a piece of code which you can license under the CeCILL v2, or find a suitable module already available that way, and add it to the program. Adding that code to the EUPL-covered program provides grounds to relicense it to the CeCILL v2. Then you need to write a piece of code which you can license under the GPLv3+, or find a suitable module already available that way, and add it to the program. Adding that code to the CeCILL-covered program provides grounds to relicense it to GPLv3+.
How embarrassing…
Simple Question:
Don't you think it's better to do than spending so much time to quarrel with allies rather than considering that they are doing a common work in favour of the Free/Open Source movement?