European Union Public Licence

The European Union Public Licence (EUPL) is a copyleft licence issued by the European Union for the licensing of free software. It is explicitly compatible with GPLv2, but has been adapted to European law and translated into the 22 languages of the EU member states since January 2008.[1]

The first edition (1.0) was approved on 9 January 2007. The latest edition is version 1.2 and was released by the European Commission on 18 May 2017. The licence is available in 22 (EUPL 1.1) and 23 (EUPL 1.2) of the official languages of the European Union respectively. All language versions are equally valid. The EUPL v.1.1 has been OSI certified since March 2009.

This licence was originally intended to be used for the distribution of software under the IDABC programme (Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens), but (due to its generic scope) it is also suitable for use by software developers. Its main objective is to focus on consistency with copyright law in the 27 Member States of the European Union, while at the same time being compatible with common open source software licences such as the GNU General Public License. The first IDABC software packages mentioned are the CIRCA Groupware, IPM and the eLink G2G, G2C, G2B specification software. Since the opening of the European Open Source Observatory and Repository in October 2008, a number of software has been registered under the EUPL, mainly by European public authorities.[2] At the end of August 2010, the information service OSOR counted 49 projects on SourceForge and a further 50 projects on its own hosting portal Forge OSOR (now JOINUP.eu) that were published under this licence.[3] The EUPL is the first licence to be published under the EUPL.