Hello Christian, It is a frequent practice from license stewards to encourage the coverage of later versions of "their" license. At the very beginning of the EUPL, licensors are invited to specify "licensed under the EUPL", which, according to the copyleft clause 5, clearly refers to the latest version. This preserves the possibility for a licensor of specifying a precise version, like "1.2-only" (or the legally similar "1.2"). The wording of the EUPL probably leaves less uncertainty than saying, for example, that "licensing under the EUPL" leaves the licensee with the choice of the version (like it is, apparently, the case for the GNU/GPL). But the real question for SPDX is: are those "-or-later" or even "+", applied to ANY license, justifying specific SPDX identifiers? Like Jilayne wrote, this was most probably a mistake in accepting to do so for the GNU licenses only (for political reasons). It would most probably be another mistake to do it for all other licenses, including the EUPL. It would be more consistent for the SPDX Standard to stick to a strict and transparent rule: "*a unique SPDX identifier must correspond to a unique license text*". According to this rule, no "-or-later" SPDX identifier should exist, simply because no precise unique and definitive license text can correspond to it. This would not restrict the frequent practice to license under the "LicenseX-or later" (or "+"), but simply doesn't deserve any new SPDX identifier. The current SPDX exception introduces confusion and even (IMHO) compromises SPDX as a standard. It's never too late to right a mistake... Kind regards, P-E Schmitz (EUPL support in the Interoperable Europe Portal)
Le jeu. 25 avr. 2024 à 17:09, Christian Meeßen via lists.spdx.org <[email protected]> a écrit : > Hello SPDX LegalTeam, > > I am an RSE working at the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) > in Potsdam, Germany. I am involved in working groups in Helmholtz that > deal with Research Software Engineering aspects, and am also the > maintainer of the Helmholtz Research Software Directory > (https://helmholtz.software). We generally encourage the usage of SPDX > identifiers for software. > > I noticed that there exists one identifier for EUPL-1.1 [1] and EUPL-1.2 > [2] respectively, although the licenses specify that code can be > redistributed also under later versions of that license unless it is > explicitly stated otherwise. Here is an example from EUPL-1.2 (clause 5, > "Copyleft clause"): > > > If the Licensee distributes or communicates copies of the Original > Works or Derivative Works, this Distribution or Communication will be > done under the terms of this Licence or of a later version of this > Licence unless the Original Work is expressly distributed only under > this version of the Licence — for example by communicating 'EUPL v. 1.2 > only'. > > The GPL licenses are separated into "-only" and "-or-later" identifiers. > Is there a specific reason why this was not applied to the EUPL > identifiers? Would it be possible to replace the existing identifiers > with EUPL-1.x-only and EUPL-1.x-or-later identifiers? > > The EUPL-1.0 is not affected. > > Kind regards, > > Christian Meeßen > > [1] EUPL-1.1: https://spdx.org/licenses/EUPL-1.1.html > [2] EUPL-1.2: https://spdx.org/licenses/EUPL-1.2.html > > -- > Dr. Christian Meeßen > eScience Center > Tel: +49 (0)331 6264-1983 > Email: [email protected] > _____________________________________ > Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam > Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ > Stiftung des öff. Rechts Land Brandenburg > Telegrafenberg A70/320, 14473 Potsdam > > > > > > -- Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz [email protected] tel. + 32 478 50 40 65 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1846): https://lists.spdx.org/g/spdx/message/1846 Mute This Topic: https://lists.spdx.org/mt/105731993/21656 Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.spdx.org/g/spdx/leave/2655439/21656/1698928721/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
