Lawlines Vol 10 Issue 1 - eOASIS - Rajah & Tann LLP

Vol 10 Issue 1 June 2008 • Rajah & Tann LLP’s Bi-Annual Journal on articles of current interest, features, and legal developmentsIN THIS ISSUE:A Round-Up Of LatestDevelopments In TheFirst Half Of 2008Rajah & Tann LLP Hosts9 th Lunchtime SeminarSeriesTax, Private Wealth &Trusts PracticeCourt Of Appeal DeliversJudgment On The LTA-Komoco Motors DisputeInsider Trading And TheVexed QuestionOf General AvailabilityCourts And Arbitration -A Question Of Balance?Recent Developments InSingapore LawDisclosure OfConfidential InformationBy ProfessionalIn The Pursuit Of ItsLegitimate InterestsPublic PrivatePartnership Projects– The Processcan benefit from the changes made. This principle of ‘copyleft’ essentially ensures that the rightsover the open source software are preserved, even when the GPL licensed software is changed oradded to.This is of particular concern to IT managers. If the IT system that you are sourcing is commerciallyvaluable, in the sense that the company wishes to keep it proprietary or cannot afford to haveit released in source code, then care must be taken to avoid using any GPL licensed softwarecomponents.Mozilla Public Licence – ‘Weak’ CopyleftThe Mozilla Public Licence (‘MPL’) is another example of an open source and free software licence,popularised by the software that gave it its name: Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and otherMozilla projects. Although it is also recognised as a copyleft licence, its distinguishing factor is thatit is commonly regarded as a ‘weak’ copyleft. Specifically, source code copied or changed underthe MPL must stay under the MPL. Unlike strong copyleft licenses like the GPL, the open sourcecode under the MPL may be combined in a program with proprietary software code without therequirement to disclose the source code of the latter.The fundamental legal and philosophical difference between the MPL and GPL is that GPL licensedsoftware must always remain free. Generally speaking, any additions made to GPL licensedcode need to be contributed back to the community, which is why the GPL is often referredto as a reciprocal license. With the MPL, there is no such stipulation for reciprocity or perpetualopenness.Open Source In ITContracts73 /77