EPL 2.0

[Aspasia Beneti]

Hi there,

are there any plans of licensing Clojure with EPL 2.0 in the future? I am interested in terms of GPL compatibility which as stated here :

In terms of GPL compatibility, the new license allows the initial contributor to a new project to opt in to a secondary license that provides explicit compatibility with the GNU General Public License version 2.0, or any later version.

Thanks in advance

Aspasia

[Alex Miller]

Hi Aspasia,

We provided some feedback in the early discussions around EPL 2.0. I haven't looked closely at the final result, but I don't think a lot of those concerns were addressed and it's unlikely that Clojure will switch to EPL 2.0.

Alex

[Daniel Compton]

Hi Aspasia

Clojars and the Software Freedom Conservancy have been looking at the EPL 2.0 license and the impact of Clojure libraries adopting it, particularly around GPL compatibility. However I suspect that even if all Clojure libraries adopt the GPL compatibility clause, it would still need Clojure itself to adopt it for people to be able to use GPL software compliantly.

You can see a little bit of discussion around this at http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists//epl-discuss/msg00158.html. However the CliffsNotes that came out of that conversation and the EPL-2.0 FAQ were:

Q: What is the impact of adding a secondary GPL license?

A: It is almost the same as dual licensing EPL/GPL

Q: How can I upgrade a project from EPL-1.0 to EPL-2.0?

A: The EPL allows new versions of the license to be adopted by projects with little work. A project can use the new version by simply updating the file headers and notices. It would be good practice to discuss this before relicensing though.

Q: How can I upgrade a project to EPL-2.0 with GPL secondary license?

A: You must gain permission from all copyright holders to re-license the content (Ed: Projects with a CLA would allow you to do this, as you have already gotten approval from contributors.)

Q: Some organizations do not use GPL-licensed content. What are the impacts of licensing a project with EPL-2.0 + GPL secondary license?

A: While the EPL-2.0 has a concept called "Secondary Licenses", should an adopter not want to use the Secondary License, then the entire construct can simply be ignored. The code can be consumed purely under the EPL-2.0 without any concerns.

You should check the original sources for these questions and answers for their full context, as I've edited them here for brevity, hopefully with little loss in precision.

Alex: it looks like this was your email about concerns you and Rich had. I can see Mike Milinkovich had some followups with answers, do they satisfy your concerns about the definition of derivative works?

I've created issues for Leiningen and Clojars to discuss the EPL-2.0 license in the context of new project templates, and also whether and how Clojars could help projects migrate to EPL-2.0 + GPL.

Thanks, Daniel.

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[Alex Miller]

On Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 2:12:03 PM UTC-6, Daniel Compton wrote:

Alex: it looks like this was your email about concerns you and Rich had. I can see Mike Milinkovich had some followups with answers, do they satisfy your concerns about the definition of derivative works?

I was sending along Rich's concerns there, so I can't really say whether they address his concerns or not. 

[Aspasia Beneti]

Sorry for the late response, I had somehow disabled notifications from this thread.

Thank you for your answers. I am far from a legal expert, but I had to do some research about the licensing matters as I am in a bit of a dead end situation: I work for an NGO that works a lot with European projects and has a quite strict copyleft policy. In most new projects we land, we try to push Clojure as the prefered language. However we realised that we might have severe legal implications trying to licence our software with AGPL. Probably we should take our case to a legal expert to see if there is any smart way around it. 

That's why I thought that EPL2.0 could have given us a (slightly) more straightforward solution but I do understand the challenges and implications that come with it. Thanks for filling the issues, will follow the updates.