The European Commission approved an update of the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) on 9 January 2009. Seven clarifications were made in the licence text, without changing the original meaning.
The Commission validated version 1.1 of the EUPL in all official languages of the European Union.
The text was changed slightly to clarify the licence, say sources involved in the process. For example, regarding distribution and/or communication, article 1 was changed to include application service providers (ASPs) and software as a service (Saas).
Another change was made in article 5, to the 'Copyleft clause'. Adding the words "or of a later version of this Licence" makes clear that work distributed under for example the EUPL version 1.0 may be re-distributed under the EUPL version 1.1 or a later version. This text simplifies the licence by replacing text that had a similar effect: "The new version of the Licence becomes binding for You as soon as You become aware of its publication."
Upgrading is not an obligation. The updated EUPL also allows distributors to expressly distribute their work under a specific version of the licence.
The other changes to the EUPL are in the last paragraph of article 6, in article 11 and in article 13. In article 13, it is now explained that all 22 linguistic versions have identical value. This means that developers and users of software distributed under the EUPL can use whichever linguistic version suits them.
The list of compatible licences was not changed.
Improving the EUPL was considered necessary following a Workshop organised by the European Commission in 2008 and after discussions with a group of about fifty legal and open source experts that were involved with the translation of the licence in 22 European languages. The licence has also been discussed with the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
The first version of the EUPL was published on 9 January 2007. The Open Source Observatory and Repository (Osor.eu), in January 2009 lists eleven applications that are published using the EUPL. Examples of such applications are Wollmux, a plugin for creating forms and letterheads in OpenOffice , IPM, a tool to create online questionnaires, and OSBD, a tool for provide and manage virtual desktops offered over a local area network or over the Internet.
More information:
Earlier Osor.eu news item