On 21 January 2016 Eurostat published on Joinup the Eurotrace licence, aimed to the distribution of the Eurotrace statistic software.
The licence is published on Joinup: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/148734
The Eurotrace licence looks an interesting interoperability tool. It is an “ad hoc licence”, specific to a product (Eurotrace), making it a “freeware” (gratis proprietary software) that Eurostat accepts to deliver for free to other statistic bodies.
However (this is not a criticism of the Eurostat licensing policy) it may be useful to clarify the differences between the Eurotrace licence and a Free/Open Source Software licence. Unlike the European Union Public Licence (EUPL), Eurotrace is not an Open Source licence (and therefore Eurotrace is not an open source software) for several reasons:
- Eurotrace is not licensed to “any interested licensee” but only to organisations or bodies involved in statistics (art. 1). In practice, even if the acceptation of the licence can be done by clicking some icon "I agree" (art. 8), the licensee must be expressly identified and registered, allowing Eurostat to notify in writing (by e-mail) any revision of the licence. This is in contradiction with principles 5 & 6 of the Open Source Definition (OSD);
- The right to re-distribute the software is expressly excluded (art.1). This is in contradiction to principle 1 & 3 of the OSD;
- The duration of the licence is limited and may be terminated every year without specific motivation (art.3);
- Eurostat reserves the right to change these existing conditions at any time;
- Nothing is said concerning the availability of the source code and the right to modify it (principle 2 of the OSD). The Licence covers only the “use” of the program and the sentence “The Licensee shall keep Eurostat informed of any changes in the stated use or in the contact details” (art. 8) does not imply the communication of the source code.
The above remarks do not prejudice the value and real interest of the Eurostat approach.