Transparency and strong support for the open source community are at the core of midPoint’s approach. To reinforce this commitment while ensuring compliance with key EU laws like cyber resilience and product liability, from version 4.10 midPoint is licensed exclusively under the EUPL.
Back in 2011, midPoint was originally released under the terms of the Apache License. When the midPoint project started, we looked for a very liberal and modern open source license. Therefore, the Apache License was a natural choice. As the midPoint project matured, we started to realize that the Apache License may have some drawbacks. It is an excellent license in its own right. However, the world was a different place when the license was created, not accounting for cloud and other forms of software deployments. Moreover, the Apache License was created with respect to U.S. legislation. On the other hand, Evolveum is based in and owned in Europe, all midPoint core developers live in Europe, many of our customers are in Europe, and the midPoint project received funding from the European Union in the course of several projects. Therefore, we got the feeling that a US-centric license was no longer a good fit for midPoint. That is why we added the EUPL license to the project in 2019. MidPoint 4.0 was released as dual-licensed software, using both the Apache License and the EUPL. While this approach worked for some time, dual-licensing brings its own set of problems. Therefore, we have decided to complete the transition and use EUPL licensing only, starting with midPoint 4.10.
The European Union Public License (EUPL) is a modern open source license created by the European Commission with the specific goal of fitting into the European legislative framework. It is a very unique license in that respect. It is the first license created and maintained by an international government body. Its very nature guarantees full compliance with European legislation, including new legislative acts such as the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which makes the EUPL a natural choice for midPoint.
The EUPL is a weak copyleft license. The copyleft nature of EUPL supports the wider open source community, as anyone who modifies midPoint must release the modifications back to the community. However, copylefting is not viral. MidPoint can still be incorporated into bigger projects without any obligations to license those projects under the EUPL. Moreover, the EUPL is explicitly compatible with other open source licenses. The EUPL also covers new use cases of software, such as the distribution of software as a service (SaaS), making it one of the best open source licenses available today.
We believe that switching to the pure EUPL is the best move to strengthen the open source character of midPoint. Starting with version 4.10, midPoint will be available solely under the EUPL, while the releases 4.8 and 4.9 remain dual-licensed under both the EUPL and the Apache 2.0 License. This change applies only to midPoint itself and does not include connectors or other components. The use of midPoint will be simpler, the open source community will be empowered, and midPoint’s development and distribution will be fully compliant with European legislation.