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Push Underway For Languishing UCITA
mojotoad writes: "Efforts have currently be redoubled to push UCITA through up to 10 states by the end of the year, according to an article on law.com. Apparently, the bill has been "languishing" in state legistlatures. My favorite quote: 'There is a natural euphoria whenever you draft a bill like UCITA,' says Daniel Duncan, executive director of the Digital Commerce Coalition. 'We thought, "We'll take it to the states and they'll see the wisdom of our work."' Time to redouble your effort to thwart this beast. Contact your congressman."
Cool, multi-state processing.
"Pullen wants software companies to be held liable for damages for security breaks resulting from the backdoor technology -- as well as damages from known glitches in software."
People will think twice before putting out software now *cough* MS *cough*.
How is it that Americans constantly proclaim their amazingly free society when totalitarian legislation like this can become law? It blatently tramples over all kinds of Constitutional rights, precedents established in courts and the general moral principles claimed by Americans in political arguments.
Until you stop letting your Government using the Constitution as novelty toilet paper, your hysterical rantings about the "land of the free" are nothing more naive, foolish posturings.
Those poor software corporations are struggling to make huge profits out of their respective monopolies. Fortunatley we have UCITA. People keep pirating them, or even worse, writing software that performs the same function therefore circumventing exisiting copyright laws. This must be stopped. Before long, we'll have clones of Office, and Photoshop, and MS and Adboe will be unable to stop them.
This should have been the bill that would put an end to a lot of this, but no:
while software companies should provide reliable goods, they shouldn't have to bear potentially enormous risks associated with the use of their products.
"How many companies are there who would undertake that risk?" Kupferschmid asks. "No one would. It's just too great."
So: The industry knows that its software can cause enormous problems, and yet does not want to take responsibility for them. If a building contractor were to say that, they would be slapped down!
Now instead of a law which would finally force companies to take responsibility for their software and actions, we have one which will instead give them more opportunity to prevent us from doing anything about it. How long before license agreements prevent the dicussion of bugs found in the program? It could be done!
Don't just contact your congressman or senator, contact your local legislative representatives. Local representatives respond (usually) to pressure from their constituents. The best thing to do is to write a letter. Followed by calling them up. And last (and least) drop them an email message. Find your local representatives at the Nationcal Conference of State Legislatures site. Or try one of these other two directories: here and here.
.plan.
Some day I hope to have a
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Trying to restrict the consumers rights, is not necessarily a long term gain for the big software corporations.
When they go TOO far, people may start realizing that they have no choice but to use Free Software.
This may end up backfiring big time, because of a shortsighted hunt for profit.
Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I have never seen it discussed on /. ...
How will the UCITA affect shrink-wrap agreements in other countries? I live in Canada, and I really do not see how a law passed in congress (or wherever ;) ) can apply to me. Are there international agreements which would allow the US to enforce this law abroad?
---There is no spoon....---
I hear Central Services has lots of fancy new colors of ducts!
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
I've said this before (thereby making this a redundant post I suppose).
The way do deal with this is to start behaving like other industries:
Auto makers don't slap a disclaimer on their products - they slap a warranty on them.
Home builders don't slap a disclaimer on their products - they slap a warranty on them.
Computer makers don't slap a disclaimer on their products - they slap a warranty on them.
As soon as a few software makers start replacing disclaimers with warranties then consumers will start demanding them.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Does this mean that I can put out a blank disk, claiming to have a really cool game, but it just be a few lines of java,... but when smacking a shrinkwrap on it, claim no warranty, and be covered by the UCITA?
In order for laws to be passed, they need to be taken to their extremes, and then tested. Enough with this intent and legal interpretation shit.
If saner minds prevail, and UCITA is defeated in a few states it will not stop them . We have to understand this and be just as resolute and relentless as our opponents. We also can't give in in the states where UCITA has passed. We have to keep working to get those laws repealed.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." That is what that phrase means. Fighting these people is a lot like mankind's fight with the cockroach - it will never be won - but you have to keep fighting. Set yourself mentally for the fact that you are in a fight that will last your lifetime. We might win battles, but the war will never end.
I submitted this as a story in its' own right last night (rejected) - anybody think this is a rather significant question in relation the position /. (and the open source movement as a whole) takes on the UCITA?
/. is leading voice of the Open Source movement and chief critic of the UCITA. Learned representatives of the Linux movement (as excerpted from Technology Daily below) seem to feel the two positions are incompatible? Who's right?
>>>>What is the story here -
Consumer groups' opposition to current software licensing practices -- and to the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA), which is strongly supported by software manufacturers -- could have the unintended effect of threatening the existence of open source software, an attorney for companies and organizations that develop free software said Thursday.
Speaking at a Federal Trade Commission workshop at which consumer groups and technology companies aired their views of UCITA and its impact of software licenses and warranties, attorney Carol Kunze said the open source and free software movements were extremely concerned about restrictions on their ability to license their programs.
"Licensing is critical, and the ability to embed the license in the product is critical," said Kunze -- who represents Red Hat, TurboLinux, and other companies and groups who create open source software, or free software, that is available for download and redistribution.
Although most of the consumer groups' complaints are directed at software companies that license software for a fee and require individuals to accept the terms of the license before they make a purchase, the dispute over licenses opens a new conflict between consumer groups and the open source movement. Kunze said that open software companies would be wiped out if they had to provide warranties about the software they distribute.
In particular, Kunze criticized a proposal that the Consumer Federation of America made to the FTC prior to the conference that software companies sell rather than license their wares. She expressed concern that this would subject software-makers to the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act -- which requires that companies certify the reliability of their product before they sell it.
"Magnuson-Moss applies to the sale of consumer goods," said Kunze. "What we do is license. We are worried that people are arguing that it should apply."
She added: "Because the software is free, there are no license fees to support a warranty. If free software makers lose the right to disclaim all warranties and find themselves getting sued over the performance of the programs they've written, they will stop contributing free software to the world."
But Jonathan Band, an attorney at Morrison and Forester who represents technology companies that seek to develop interoperable systems, said that Kunze's defense of licensing was overwrought. "It is a given that people are going to license software," Band said. "Given that, the question is whether there certain terms that should be prohibited in licenses."
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
I also am from Virginia. Yes, the UCITA legislation has passed. HoweverThere was also a resolution passed that the Joint Commission on Technology and Science would study the impact of the legislation and report back to the General Assembly by December 1, 2000. Furthermore, the UCITA legislation is not set to take effect until July 1, 2001.
It is not too late.
Write to your state senators and representatives (not your federal congressional representatives, but the ones that represent you in the state legislature - which you can find here - although it probably couldn't hurt to write to everyone in the state legislature if you are motivated to do so). Refer to the Uniform Computer Informations Transactions Act, or SB372 (from 2000 legistlative session) or CHAP996 (the actual additions to the Code of Virginia). Explain to them nicely, coherently, and concisely why UCITA is bad for Virginia, its citizens, and even its businesses. Point out how the other states have been unwilling to adopt UCITA and why.
UCITA can still be repealed in Virginia. Now is also the time to redouble our efforts towards that goal.
What happens the first time Red Hat (for example) gets sued for something like their update daemon? What if one of the *BSD gets sued because of a unknown security lapse? If a company is responsible for all the code it ships, does this mean Caldera is respinsible if there's a bug in xbill? Is Debian responsible for bugs in their unstable release? If I can't install SuSE on my laptop, should they fly someone out here to install it for me?
It's all nice and good to say that companeis should stand behind their products and provide a warranty, but also look at how that will affect the companies you *do* care about.
This whole post is based on false assumptions. The excerpt above is the closest you come to actually stating them.
Owning a gun does not make someone "right wing." Traditional liberalism is about personal liberties, and the right to keep and bear arms is the lynchpin of all other personal liberties. The right to keep and bear arms was historically the product of the radical left, and many of it's strongest champions hark from that point of view. Elitism tends toward the view that only a few should be allowed the privelige of arms, it is egalitarianism (historically a "left" or "liberal" position) that leads to the view that everyone has the right to arm and if necessary defend themselves.
Free Software, and, to a lesser degree, Open Source, are also coherent expressions of an egalitarian perspective, that believes not just some select elite, but everyone, should have the ability to learn from, and modify, the programming of their computers. These are actually very similar positions.
Now to get back to the topic of the article, one must ask oneself whether UCITA is an expression of the sort of egalitarian worldview that produced the RKBA and Free Software, or of the right-wing elitism that holds that the people cannot be trusted with weapons or with source code? I must submit that it is an expression of the latter, and furthermore it is blatant rent-seeking, an attempt by big business to gain power over their customers by act of legislature. Those of use that believe in the RKBA and Free Software should therefore also oppose UCITA strongly and vocally. Call your state representatives people. Call or write, dead-tree mail, not email, and let them know you are a registered voter in their district, why you don't want UCITA to pass, and that you WILL be looking at how they vote when it comes up.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
UCITA was passed by Virginia and Maryland last
year, but only Maryland has enacted the law.
Virginia is still holding hearings on UCITA,
which is scheduled to become law in July 2001.
The bill will be up for review this year in Delaware, Hawaii,
Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, and Oklahoma.
They've run a anti-UCITA editorial in almost every
issue the past two years. (To the point where my
eyes glaze over when I see the word.) If I believe
half the stuff they claim, it sounds like the
end of the software industry.
that governments are seldom more than corporate shills anymore, and nowhere more than in the US.
I like this bit: "if software companies are liable for glitches, it will stifle innovation." I say good; far better that our technology is reliable, rather than just being The New k-r@D l33t $7uPh Microsoft and its ilk try to push on us on a yearly basis.
Of course, there needs to be a law out there forbidding any software license (or any other IP license for that matter) from prohibiting activities defined as fair use. No more of this presumption-of-guilt crap from IP-based businesses who see someone copying a DVD to his hard drive and assuming he's going to pirate it. Come to think of it, I've often wondered if fair use should be formally defined; anyone have a take on that?
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"We have done a fair amount of public education. Maybe it hasn't been as effective as we would have liked."
"We have spent alot on propaganda. Maybe the people who we are trying to brainwash arent fucking idiots."
Just a couple of thought here:
Don't write your congressman:Because this is a uniform set of proposed state laws, your congressional rep in DC can't do much about it. Instead, contact your representatives in your state legislatures.
The software manufacturers want the best of both worlds:There has been a debate in recent years about whether software constitutes a product or a service. In broad terms, vendors selling a product are more accountable to consumers than those selling a service. UCITA sounds like an attempt by corporate giants to treat their software as a product, while still maintaining the lower liability thresholds associated with a service. It really sucks.
Here's an idea...Let's get UCITA ammended. Software makers could have a choice: either (a) open source your software under GPL and enjoy the limited liability associated with a service, or (b) put out a closed source product and be held accountable. That might just cause some vendors to make better software...
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
"How long before license agreements prevent the dicussion of bugs found in the program?"
there are stirrings and rumours about making places like bugtraq illegal, as they allow for illegal activities. if the government is allowed to say that x site does not help by posting bugs, but is in fact an "evil den of hacker iniquity" then we are very much screwed.
One thing about the sort of people who push things like UCITA - they are relentless. No matter how many times they are beaten they keep coming back. They want to win by exhaustion...
[the fight] will never be won - but you have to keep fighting. Set yourself mentally for the fact that you are in a fight that will last your lifetime.
There's a way to put a stake through its heart:
Come up with an alternative and start lobbying to get THAT passed. This puts them in much the same position we are in now, and we've got more voters and callers.
Once an alternative, setting forth OUR idea of what the law should be, is in place, they have to convince legislators, not just to fill in the void, but to repeal a popular law and replace it with an unpopular one. And you even get to argue on the relative merits!
(Of course as any movie fan knows, occasionally the baddie gets the stake pulled OUT of it's heart. So it's not necessarily a win for all time. But at least you get to sleep more easily for a few decades. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I find it hard to believe that UCITA would get out of committee in the Iowa Legislature, as three of the biggest businesses in the state, in addition to the Universities and the state Attorney General are lined up against it.
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Great links!
I seem to have missed where they mention which states are in process with this BS. We can't battle this crap if we don't know who needs to act now on it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
UCITA will be coming up for a vote in the state of Oregon next year. See http://www.econ.state.or.us/icom/legalisc.htm for further details.
What is especially appalling is that of the four people on the committee, two are IP landsharks, one is a VP of Microsoft, & only the last one is an elected official.
Guess which way this committe is leaning.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Try the enemeywww.ucitaonline.com
You can even sign up for e-mail updates!
Virginia opted for what I'm sure seemed like a reasonable compromize between my (and other's) fears and the desires of corporate America. They passed the bill so that they could continue to lure companies to Virginia (and keep the ones they have.) Then they said that the bill wouldn't go into affect until after a period of study of its affects (seems kind of odd that they can study something that isn't working, but it sounded good at the time.)
Maybe I've been reading /. too much and have become paranoid, but I've never seen the results of that study and the bill recently, and quietly, came into affect.
So here's my warning: If your state tries this with you and says that their going to do a study, find out who is doing the study, what methods they are going to use, and what the results are. Find out what conditions need to exist in order for the study to invalidate the bill. This will tell you a lot about how serious they are about the study, and whether or not you need to get a new representative.
You can make a difference at the state level, and it only takes a few hours of your time. Talk to your neighbors. Give rides to the polls. Pollwatch. Work the phones for that candidate from now until election day.
Even if you don't give a darn about the federal elections, you can make a noticable difference in the local elections. Our statehouse race was decided by less than 50 votes in our district. Push against UCITA. Find out your candidates' positions on UCITA. Get commitments from them, and commit to the candidate who takes positions that are closest to yours.
If this is your one single issue for a statehouse race, let candidates know that you are pro-information - and you vote!