Joinup's JLA tool compares open licences via SPDX linkage. Features taxonomy for content analysis, compatibility, legal aspects, and includes searchable SPDX identifiers. It is an EC solution.
Legal
Last update: 13/03/2024
GPL-2.0 facing Court ruling in Paris
On February 24 2024, the Paris Court of Appeal rendered its (final?) decision in a dispute which since 2011 pitted the small open source company Entre’Ouvert (hereafter EO) against the giant Orange telecom company. This is the conclusion of a 13-year-old dispute, which duration can be explained by an attempt at mediation followed by multiple appeals (first instance, appeal, cassation, new ruling of the court of appeal).Orange had integrated the LASSO tool (software library distributed by EO under GPL-2.0) into its Identity Management Platform (“IDMP”) and had sold the solution to the French…
Open Source Software
Last update: 26/02/2024
Apache and EUPL
In his blog (in Spanish), Javier López Acevedo analyses the compatibility between the EUPL and the more permissive Apache license.Regarding the EUPL, nothing in Apache versions 1.1 and 2.0 prohibits relicensing a larger work under this license. In the case of version 1.1 there are certain requirements - such as the existence of certain prohibitions on the use of the "Apache" brand - but in no case are they considered restrictions added by the EUPL licensor. Specifically, they are inherited from the original Apache license.These requirements therefore do not affect the essential freedoms of the…
LicensingOpen Source Software
Last update: 26/02/2024
Open climate for the world!
After three years preparation and discussion, the European ICON weather services model system becomes Open Source, institutions communicated in February 2024.ICON (for ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic modeling framework) is developed by five European partners:the Swiss Center for Climate Systems Modeling (Federal Office for Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSchweiz and ETH Zurich as C2SM partners), the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ), the German Weather Service (DWD), the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT)the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M). The ICON model enables efficient…
Science and technologyOpen Source SoftwareReusable Software Components
Last update: 02/02/2024
Open source user-friendly data protection tool
Announced on January 29, 2024, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) unveiled a website auditing tool as part of the EDPB Support Pool of Experts (SPE) initiative. This tool, available for legal and technical auditors at data protection authorities (DPAs) and controllers and processors, assesses website compliance with legal standards. Operating as Free and Open Source Software under the EUPL 1.2 License, the tool’s source code is downloadable from code.europa.eu.Addressing the need for accessibility, the EDPB designed this tool to simplify enforcement for national DPAs and compliance…
European PoliciesICTOpen Source Software
Last update: 12/01/2024
Top in Estonians E-education under EUPL
Known for the quality of their education system, Estonia provides its online E-education tool SCHOOLABY under the European Union Public Licence (EUPL). Interest of E-education was especially reinforced during the recent COVID pandemics and in case war pushes students away from their schools, as it is unfortunately the case in Ukraine, but even in normal circumstances and for various reasons (illness, trip or expatriation, lack of teachers, break due to sport competition activities etc.) it can be a precious alternative. It ensures constant readiness, also for distance learning with some…
SocialCulture and education+2 topics
Last update: 03/12/2023
After "OSOR turns 15"
The OSOR turns 15 celebration (21 November 2023) gave speakers the opportunity to highlight the role of Digital Commons in implementing a user centric vision: supporting the rule of law, inclusion, transparency, accountability and collaboration. Ultimately four words summarize all that quite well: “People and rights first”!The advent of the digital era served as driving force for the adoption of major EU legal instruments. After initial directives, we welcome regulations in various fields (PSI, Data, GDPR, SDGR, AI and very soon the Interoperable Europe Act).But knowing that the "open"…
European PoliciesLegal+3 topics
Last update: 06/11/2023
EUPL licensed identity platform
Evolveum presents itself as a globally recognized EU-based organization that was established in 2011 and as a professional open source development team focused on Identity and Access Management solutions. It is the creator and maintainer of its open source identity platform, midPoint. The last release (October 31, 2023) midPoint 4.8, code-named after Marie Skłodowska-Curie, is distributed under the EUPL licence. According to the Evolveum midPoint dataset, the feature set covering identity governance and administration makes midPoint a solution for organizations seeking digital transformation…
eIdentity and eSignatureICT securityOpen Source Software
Last update: 18/09/2023
EUPL vision of the Human Colossus Lab
The THCLab introduces itself as a team of individuals that truly believe in a world, where data flows do not end up in a few data silos. They believe in the opposite, where individuals are in the centre of these flows and they are controlled by them. The decentralization is a next inevitable step towards individuals. To achieve that, we need to build proper tech that operates in a decentralized paradigm, without any central point of control. In their official technical Github account for Human Colossus Foundation efforts, THCLab delivers a “distillation” of the EUPL license as follows: EUPL1…
On June 21st, 2023 the PrestaShop project’s live update was held for the sixth time and streamed live. PrestaShop, a French scale-up born in 2007, may not be very well known outside professional e-commerce stakeholders. Most public sector officials may never have heard of it. However, the PrestaShop project is worldwide one of the leading open-source e-commerce platforms on the web, powering over 300,000 web stores generating some 20 billion euro turnover! Open source means licensing and indeed, PrestaShop is released under the OSL 3.0 license, and is freely available on GitHub to download…
TradeOpen Source Software
Last update: 13/06/2023
EUPL includes a DCO. Why?
Managing software copyright may be a difficult exercise, especially when it is produced from multiple sources and authors as it is frequent in Open Source projects. More generally, when a project is initiated, authors try to implement some project governance and to determine who the project leader and copyright owner is. This may be done through a CAA (Copyright Assignment Agreement) or by a CLA (Copyright Licensing Agreement) or be ruled by the outbound licence itself. Other stakeholders propose a simpler DCO (Developer Certificate of Origin). A CAA is a legal document (a contract on paper or…
LegalLicensingOpen Source Software
Last update: 26/04/2023
The largest EUPL licensed project?
EBSI status The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) aims to leverage the power of blockchain for the public good. Indeed, in the current age of Internet (Web2), big platforms and social networks (i.e. the so-called “GAFAM”) offered to facilitate users’ activities by providing them services like unique sign-on (i.e. “Sign in with Google”). However, by providing such service, they have taken global visibility and control on users’ behaviour and credentials. In the coming third age of the internet (Web3), the aim of EBSI is to provide a new paradigm for exchanging and verifying…