In the last 28 years of publishing software, I’ve had three distinct eras of software licensing. All of my recent stuff is available under the European Union Public License 1.2, and I thought to explain why.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/35110129

This year I decided to switch my “default license” to EUPL-1.2. This is an OSI-approved free software license created and published by the European Union. And it is quite a divergence from the licenses I’ve used in the past. EUPL is a strong copyleft license that closes the “SaaS loophole” by requiring reciprocal licensing regardless of how the software is distributed.

Over the years it has been clear that we in the “open source” camp (as opposed to the “free software” camp) were wrong all along.

We won the debate, and gained little for users or developers. All that our efforts did was to make it easier for big corporations build things more cheaply and for billionaires to become trillionaires.

And so it is time to stop messing about with permissive licenses. If corporations don’t want to use our software under our terms, they are free to spend the effort or tokens to build their own.

  • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.caEnglish
    14·
    16 days ago

    I understand why you’d want to avoid MIT, but as someone who generally favours the AGPL for everything I do, I’m curious why you opted for the EUPL instead.

    • talkingpumpkin@lemmy.world
      31·
      14 days ago

      IIUC the EUPL is more similar to the GPL that the AGPL (ie. there’s no “network use” clause)

      edit: seems like IDUC - see comment below

      • mholiv@lemmy.world
        3·
        14 days ago

        Not true. The EUPL defines distribution broadly enough that it covers saas style network use. It’s like the AGPL.

        From the article:

        And it is quite a divergence from the licenses I’ve used in the past. EUPL is a strong copyleft license that closes the “SaaS loophole” by requiring reciprocal licensing regardless of how the software is distributed.

        From the official source:

        For many open licences, distributing software is obtaining it (i.e. via downloading) in order to install it on your own device. Licences do not cover remote use, when a user interacts remotely with server-provided functionalities. The definitions in article 1 of the EUPL assimilates “communication to the public” to “distribution” and therefore targets and covers SaaS (software as a service) and the ASP (application service provider) activity.
        Article 1 defines as “- Distribution or Communication: any act of selling, giving, lending, renting, distributing, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making available, on-line or off-line, copies of the Work or providing access to its essential functionalities at the disposal of any other natural or legal person.”.

        Therefore on this specific point, the EUPL is similar to the AGPL.

        Source: https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/faqs

      • provectus@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        Is it still considered strong copyleft if it is similar to the GPL then?

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.orgOP
    101·
    16 days ago

    Personally, I also think that much of the hate which one would find e.g. on reddit or the orange site against copyleft licenses in general, and the GPL specifically was probably astroturfing from corporations for which it was just an obstacle to appropiate more unpaid volunteer work for the commons for free.

    For the Linux kernel - and for GNU/Linux as an OS - the GPL was never a problem. On the contrary: Without it, the kernel would not be what it is (the historic Torvalds - Tanenbaum debate shows the reasons quite clearly).

    The same is true, by the way for the GNU Guix project: Very few arguments against it are logical or really hold water. It is, for example, perfectly possile to publish a Guix channel for a commercial game or proprietary software on ones own web site - just as you can do with a docker image. And the way Guix takes care of dependencies and updates makes it probably the easiest way to do such. Because you can use Guix as a package manager on most distros - I use it both on Debian and Arch - I find it more reasonable than using snaps, docker, or flatpaks.

    The reason for the hate is likely something else: That you can’t commercialise and embrace the whole, source-based ecosystem.

    For example, you can’t use the Guix infrastructure (e.g. their mailing list or download server) to promote or advertise commercial, non-free stuff. But expecting or demanding to be able to do that is just ridiculous: Nobody expects from Microsoft or Apple that they feel obliged to promote or market Adobe or Oracle products. Alone the idea that companies could demand that shows how entitled the corporations behave in respect to free software.

    • Obin@feddit.org
      31·
      15 days ago

      was probably astroturfing from corporations

      Could be. At least When I still was on r/linux a few years ago there were about three usual suspects who would pop up every time a topic even went in the general direction of licensing and spewed their toxicity. To me these people had less of a corporate shill vibe and more of a undiagnosed mental health issues vibe, but I obviously can’t say for sure.

  • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlMEnglish
    81·
    15 days ago

    Not good enough. Companies are still allowed to use this software freely, make massive profits without anything going to the developer. It is truly free labor.

    They are even allowed to modify it, even make derivative work, without open sourcing it, as long as they don’t distribute said derivative work.

    • KullumDaue@lemmy.world
      23·
      15 days ago

      They are even allowed to modify it, even make derivative work, without open sourcing it, as long as they don’t distribute said derivative work.

      i am not a lawyer, but isn’t that similar to gpl?

      also, why should the company’s profit go to a developer they don’t employ?

      • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlMEnglish
        31·
        14 days ago

        isn’t that similar to gpl?

        That is correct. GPL has the same problem.

        why should the company’s profit go to a developer they don’t employ?

        I dont agree with the idea that paying non-employees is a foreign concept. Many companies pay, for example, Adobe for Adobe suite software, or Google for Google suite software, despite not hiring them as employees. They pay rent to property owners despite not hiring them as employees. The idea that only employees must be paid is unfounded.

        Now, to answer “why should they pay them”, well, in exchange for their labor.

        • KullumDaue@lemmy.world
          1·
          14 days ago

          open source is free, as in freedom. you want an open source license that:

          1. forces you to share the code, even when it is not deployed (playing around at coding? share everything, to whom? don’t care, share you mfker!!!).
          2. forces you to pay a tithe to the developer.
          • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlMEnglish
            1·
            14 days ago

            You’re using “open source” as defined by OSI. Just wanted to note that open source historically arose in protest to the corporate walled gardens that dominated the software ecosystem, rather than a movement to give companies a large eco-system of free-to-use software for profit. It was about individuals having access.

            But I am not going to argue that what I am proposing is open source. I will accept that open source as a term has already been coopted to serve corporations.

            forces you to share the code, even when it is not deployed

            It would only apply to for-profit entities. It would be extremely difficult to enforce on an individual level anyways, and it would disagree with the spirit here.

            forces you to pay a tithe to the developer.

            I called that profit sharing earlier, but you can call it that too, sure.

  • Axolotl@feddit.it
    4·
    14 days ago

    I read the EUPL-1.2 license and i think is very interessing, though i don’t think i will switch from GPL or AGPL because i don’t have much of an idea of what advantages it could give me, anyone who is more proeficent with legal stuff than me could help?

  • grapemix@lemmy.ml
    2·
    14 days ago

    It’s good start, but is it kind of too late given how easy ai using our code to train their model. I appreciate their hardwork, but I hope someone can find a good solution to stop ai abusing open source repo.

  • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
    55·
    16 days ago

    What a shitty choice of a license. Typical EU legal garbage full of duplications and “lawyers” thinking “more is better”.

    Also:

    The provisions of this Licence can be accepted by clicking on an icon ‘I agree’ placed under the bottom of a window displaying the text of this Licence or by affirming consent in any other similar way, in accordance with the rules of applicable law. Clicking on that icon indicates your clear and irrevocable acceptance of this Licence and all of its terms and conditions.

    Lol, these morons. Of course the EU pencil pushers would hyperfixate on “clicking a button”.

    /a European

    • libewa@feddit.org
      73·
      16 days ago

      And the GPL has less legal garbage? One of the goals of the EUPL was that it can be understood by laymen, which doesn’t really hold true for the GPL. Those “simple” licenses like the MIT license don’t work in the EU btw, since you cannot completely renounce liability or copyright.