Red Hat Asks for UCITA Reversal

OSS advocate writes "According to this NewsForge article, Red Hat has engaged the services of Carol Kunze (ucitaonline.com) to try to convince the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to take UCITA back. There's a list of email addresses in case you want to send the commish a letter yourself." Red Hat's letter is a good start.

Comments

Thank You

[nickread]

Thank you Redhat for not only helping yourself, but the open source community as a whole.

As an established business, your views will hopefully make it more difficult for the commissioners to justify such laws.

Not quite professional..

[Chexum]

IMHO, the linked letter does not look really convincing... At the least it does not explain, why is it bad to ignore open source. Anyone reading this not knowing about open source would not care about "open source communities", nor about Red Hat.

How about reversing DMCA, shortening the span of software patents, reversing copyright lengthening, passing laws about *not* passing laws to enhance the *life* of businesses?

Re:Not quite professional..

[Rogerborg]

• the linked letter does not look really convincing

Are you kidding? Didn't you read the part WRITTEN ALL IN CAPITALS? That really swung me.

Seriously, you're right. There's no argument in there, and no reason why UCITA will hurt OSS. In fact, I'd have thought it would help OSS. Have you ever sat down and read the EULA for a commercial product? They are at best laughable and at worst abominable. Hardly any of them are reasonable or would be accepted by a reasonable person knowing that they could be enforced.

We keep focussing on the negatives of UCITA. How about the positives? How about it actually driving customers away from companies that write terms like "You can't use Frontpage to create a website that criticizes Microsoft"? (real example) to companies that offer relaxed licenses, like OSS vendors.

Re:Not quite professional..

[catfood]

How about reversing DMCA, shortening the span of software patents, reversing copyright lengthening, passing laws about *not* passing laws to enhance the *life* of businesses?

All federal issues, not applicable to the group being lobbied.

I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Senators,

I am not an electronics engineer (as per having a paper degree), however I
do engineer electronics that could be said to be equal to someone who has
such a degree. I am an inventor, a musician, a digital creator, an
electronics tinker'r whatever you would like to call it, the name really
doesn't matter as much as the intent. I take thoughts and create material
objects, it doesn't take a degree to do what I am saying. I would also
remind you I am a vetran of the United States Air Force as well as I am
currently a voter (libertarian.) Without creative folks such as myself
and others like Henry Ford, Thomas Jefferson, you wouldn't even have
electricity, lights, computers, and cars.

Statements like the following by the MPAA, "in order to help plug the hole,
watermark detectors would be required in all devices that perform analog to
digital conversions." are not very carefully thought out statements, they
worry me, as to exactly what is going on in my government and here is why.

At least four years ago, I was heavilly into building electronics, I was
engineering a device that converted from analog to digital and from digital
back to analog again. (It was basically a digital audio delay.) I started
with parts from old electronics that people had thrown out on the street. I
have spent many hours desoldering chips, and parts from electronics which
were discarded in this fashion.

I have a full personal library of technical manuals (several different
years) from Motorola, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Supertech, Zillog,
Intel, mosteck, National Semiconductor and MANY OTHERS. Basically I can
look up part numbers from nearly any chip and figure out how it works and
what I can use it for.

Durring the course of events I decided one day I wanted to build a digital
delay for my guitar. There were many D2A A2D chips to choose from, flash
converters, etc the list is endless. I won't bore you. To make a long
story short I decided to go with parts from Analog Devices for my A2D/D2A.

I ended up buying some parts from Analog Devices specifically part ADJ569JN,
and I used some memory that I had laying around from all the parts that I
collected. I had to build a counter circuit to make the ram work in each
memory segment for each sample. A fully blown electronics engineer I am
not however such an engineer can easilly verify what I say to be true. So,
basically the MPAA want's someone like me to add a watermark detector to
my digital audio delay. Well first off I do not care about digital
watermarking, that is not my problem, that was not part of my design, and
to be forced to learn how to engineer this into my design is...well insane.
And anyone who passes or suggests such laws is also...insane. So, before
you quickly dismiss me off as some wacko, I would suggest that those who
push such bills and legislation are the true wackos. Where I would rather
be more concerned about removing digital noise from the output (all digital
circuits have noise) and figuring out creative methods of how to modulate
the clock circuit for different sound effects, they *MPAA* would have me
spend my time working on how to put their watermark detector into my
circuit. Frankly with the lack of information (I had to buy books from
overseas to explain how to do digital to analog and analog to digital) that
is available in the United States I would warn those who would decide to
pass such legislation that a.) unless your ready to nuke our economy b.)
ready to make the purchase of electronics illegal. c.) have the brightest
engineers leave the United States d.) anger the public e.) ruin music
f.) ruin creativity by the future youth who take electronics classes in
schools g.) probably ruin your own political career then do not pass such
insane legislation. It is _not_ your place to make such decisions in my
opinion since you are _not_ qualified.

If your so smart to pass such legislation, answer me this. How many memory
segments will I need to use from my 8x8 ram to incorporate digital
watermarking into my Digital Audio Delay Device? Which pins does it need
to be connected to on the AD7569JN? What CHIP (which has the digital
watermarking in it) do I have to buy? How much does it cost? Who is the
maker of said chip? What is the part number on the chip? Is it compatable
with my circuit? Does this chip have any digital noise associated with it
which will bleed into my device? If so how do I supress such digital
noise? If your not ready to answer these questions, then your not ready to
pass this legislation.

I know that most senators and lawyers are not electronics (digital and analog)
experts so what qualifies them to pass law on a technology they do not fully
understand? Furthermore it comes to my attention that other bills like
the SSSCA which have had their name changed over and over, are insane,
poorly thought through, placing the burdon on the wrong folks to solve the
problem.

It also seems to me there are already laws against piracy, so no further
laws are needed. Another thing that upsets me is how these bills slip
through without even consulting the public, or letting someone like me
vote, in many cases government websites are broken and feedback forms
do not work, other times phones are busy, and nobody is around to answer
them, and some political candidates have NO EMAIL ADDRESS! this is
unacceptable. Forcing me to physically stand face to face in order to
get my point across is bad. Forcing me to make political contributions
for legislation is also bad.

Although I am no longer designing electronics at this current point in time
I may want to again. And I know that others like myself in the future will
become interested in Transmitters, Receivers, Digital and Analog
electronics, what in effect you are doing is pushing a new electronics
law (A very stupid law) into the natural laws of electronics. Especially
the young should be encouraged to get into electronics design early on in
their lives. It keeps them out of trouble and away from drugs and alchohol.

Another thing that frankly angers me is by passing the CBDTPA act you are
condemning me for using Linux, which is an operating system that does what
I want. You would be making the personal computer into some bastardised
piece of equipment that plays mickey mouse videos, when I do not even want
that on my computer at all. I use my computer to write code. In some
cases the code can do the exact same thing my earlier discussion on the
AD7569JN does. I do not want my resources being used by the media.
I want my resources being used for what I purchased them for. And that
is development. CBDTPA stifles development. It sacrifices the IT sector,
at the expense of the MPAA.

I do not pretend to have the money that the MPAA has. However is is
unfair to destroy education about electronics and dumb down america.

Which is, despite all, the BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!

I may not live long enough to get back into electronics design again, but
PLEASE DONT ruin the future because of a damned mouse.

Thank you for reading my comments.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[JamesKPolk]

Glad to know some senators cover their ears and ignore anyone whose education isn't up to their personal standards.

Too bad we can't go back and rewrite the Declaration of Independence to say "All men are created equal, as long as they know how to spell," then rewrite the First Amendement to the Constitution to say "The right to free speech shall not be infringed, as long as everything is spelled correctly."

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[PastorOfMuppets]

Do you realize how unethical that is? It is a senators job to listen to all voters in their district, not just the ones with perfect spelling and grammar. Why don't you just throw out all the letters that express opinions contrary to your own while your at it?

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[NumberSyx]

Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.

This is an incredibly elitist attitude. In effect you and the Senater you work for are saying, spelling and grammar are more important than the idea being expressed or even the person who is expressing it. Just because someone does not express themselves well, does not invalidate them as a human being. Being a grammar troll on Slashdot is one thing, but a US Senator and his staff should be interested in what everyone has to say, regardless of how poorly it is expressed. If you really feel this way and the Senator you work for supports this, then both of you need to find a new line of work

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[AstynaxX]

Everything you say is indeed true, but you must realize how politicians operate. Someone who is either uneducated or unconcerned enough to verify the spelling and grammar of their letter is also unlikely to vote or donate to a campaign. Simply put, if you aren't paying them or keeping them in office, you don't exist to them. [Before anyone flames me for that, yes, I realize that there are exceptions, but the generally accepted reasoning follows what's above, and politicians nearly always follow that which is generally accepted, until something else pays better]

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[NumberSyx]

Elected officials have a finite amount of time to work with, just like everyone else. It shouldn't be spent parsing badly-written letters and flame mail.

Flame mail is one thing, however discarding an idea, no matter how good it is, based entirely on how it being poorly expressed is elitist, which I consider to be an unacceptable trait in an Elected Official. If an "Elected Official" doesn't have time or the staff to read his mail, then he needs to get more staff, he should not throw away perfectly good ideas, comments and opinions based on obitrary standards.

Technical people in general prize elegance--conciseness, clarity, and efficiency--in the work that they do. Why should we settle for less in our paper communication?

We should accept this because not everyone express themselves well or even the same way. Do you disregard people who don't speak english well ? I hope you don't. I stand by my original statment, just because someone does not express themselves well does not mean the idea is bad, the idea should be judged on its merits, not on so called standards of good grammar.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[overunderunderdone]

I don't usually defend senators but do you have any idea how much correspondence they get? And do you know how much of that is coming from ignorant cranks with only the most delicate grasp on reality? They have to seperate the wheat from the chaff somehow and an evident lack of education and failure to communicate intelligibly seems as fair a system as is possible. Uneducated after all means essentially the same thing as ignorant. And an inability to communicate clearly is indicative of an inability to think clearly. Yes, that's not ALWAYS true, but when you are getting thousands of phone calls, letters and emails per day you have to prioritize. Missing the brilliant insights of the ignorant and incoherant is the unfortunate cost of that prioritization.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[Linux_ho]

Well, I agree that the ideas are far more important than the spelling and grammar, as long as poor spelling and grammar don't interfere with the communication of those ideas. For example, how likely is it that a senator is going to understand that a D2A/A2D is a digital-to-analog/analog-to-digital converter chip? Should they spend taxpayer money to hire someone to decipher this letter into layman's terms (and correct the spelling and grammar while they're at it)? Maybe it makes more sense for the Senator to focus on letters whose authors felt that their ideas were important enough to warrant a single proofreading.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[mpe]

Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.

Maybe a similar "filter" should be applied to proposed legislation. Some bills might fail here just on their title :)

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[raresilk]

This is exactly the point. The letters only carry weight if they come from voters and/or donors. The "donor thing" is a problem, obviously. Campaign finance reform is attempting, slowly, to work on it. But the "voter thing" we can AND MUST work on ourselves or it will never change.

How many times have I seen the act of voting in a US get flamed on /. and other similar fora? I don't care if you don't like the choices - start a write in campaign for someone you like better. But unless and until the political world is convinced that the "geek bloc" represents a substantial number of real votes, that they either must court or lose to the other guy/gal, the letters are pretty much pointless.

I suggest attaching a copy of your last ballot stub to the letter. (I'm starting an archive of my stubs so I can attach them all.) If you don't have a stub - see above.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[mpe]

I don't usually defend senators but do you have any idea how much correspondence they get?

No one forced these people to stand for office, they can always resign, if they are not happy.

And do you know how much of that is coming from ignorant cranks with only the most delicate grasp on reality?

If your "ignorant crank" happens to be a full time lobbiest they might be taken very seriously. Especially if they throw some money around too.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[mpe]

As a general rule, there is a correlation between spelling and grammer and the amount of thought and insight that goes into a letter.

Do you seriously consider this sentence an example of good grammar?

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[mpe]

Too bad we can't go back and rewrite the Declaration of Independence to say "All men are created equal, as long as they know how to spell," then rewrite the First Amendement to the Constitution to say "The right to free speech shall not be infringed, as long as everything is spelled correctly."

What is the "correct" spelling of certain words. The US Consitution predates The Rev Webster, some of Webster's revised spellings didn't make it into print because his publisher didn't like them.
The idea of a standard spelling is itself a relativly new idea. With some words having more than one "correct" spelling. especially proper nouns where original language does not use any derivative of the Roman alphabet.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[mpe]

If the feelings of you and your senator are the norm for this (US) goverment, then why bother? Do we need to establish a new sub-set of english to speak with our elected officials, akin to "The Queen's English"?

Or even "Congress English", the actual "Queen's English" would likely fail on spelling, probably grammar and possibly idiom.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[Reziac]

You're exactly right, it is elitist, but the majority of Congress are lawyers, thus are highly educated people. Education has the side effect of making you expect everyone else to be as "smart" in your field (which with lawyers, means hanging words together) as you are, and if they aren't, then to hell with 'em.

This is the same attitude commonly expressed here -- people "educated" in Linux often consider Windows users backwards and stupid, thus tend to blow off whatever they have to say.

Maybe if more farmers and plumbers were elected to Congress, its members would be more inclined to listen to people who talk like farmers and plumbers, instead of only listening to people who talk like lawyers.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[5KVGhost]

No, they have a good point. True, grammar and spelling don't seperate good ideas from bad ideas, but they are valid indicators of how much you actually care about what you've written.

Checking spelling (even if you're writing longhand and using a dictionary) is trivial, and asking someone else to read through your text will often weed out most obvious grammatical errors.

I'm hardly perfect when it comes to grammar and spelling, but if an issue is important enough to inspire me to sit down and write a letter to my representative then I'm going to do everything I can to be sure that it clearly conveys exactly the meaning I intend. If I can't be bothered to spend a minute or two to check the basic readability of my writing, then how much thought and effort actually went into the ideas I express?

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[overunderunderdone]

No one forced these people to stand for office, they can always resign, if they are not happy.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't do their jobs, & I'm not saying that listening to the concerns of their constituents isn't part of that job. But that is not the same thing as saying it's a congressman's job to spend 16 hours a day reading every letter that comes into their office no matter how incoherant.

If you want to communicate to your congressman (or anybody for that matter) it's YOUR job to at least be coherent if not persuasive. Even if you manage that it's unlikely that the congressman will read your letter (as I said they get a LOT of letters) but at least someone on his staff will & the cumulative effect of all those letters is very persuasive to an elected official.

If your "ignorant crank" happens to be a full time lobbiest they might be taken very seriously. Especially if they throw some money around too.

True, Like I said I don't usually defend congressmen. It's just that failing to read poorly written letters is not the particular crime they should be pilloried for.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[NumberSyx]

No, they have a good point. True, grammar and spelling don't seperate good ideas from bad ideas, but they are valid indicators of how much you actually care about what you've written.

What is an acceptable level of mistakes ? Is one misspelled word reason enough to throw away someones idea ? How about one badly formed sentance ? How about someone who doesn't speak english well, does that invalidate thier ideas ? Who sets these standards ? Who is holding them to this standard ?

To me this is just an EXCUSE and nothing more.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[Prior Restraint]

...he should not throw away perfectly good ideas, comments and opinions based on obitrary standards.

What the Hell is "obitrary"?

This is exactly why we have spelling and grammar rules: I can't figure what you're trying to say.

Re:I'm still waiting for ANY response to this. . .

[WNight]

The 'Donor' thing will work when it becomes treason to accept this money. Seriously, you're selling out your country and destroying its political system.

Failing that, it needs to be as illegal to "donate" to a politician as to "donate" to a cop who pulled you over. (All the idiotic "first amendment" rights arguments are flat-out wrong in both cases.)

UCITA?

[blincoln]

If, like me, you've never heard of UCITA and are looking to form your own opinion, a summary is available here:

http://www.ucitaonline.com/slhpwiu.html

Lobby group needed.

[miffo.swe]

Linux really seams to need a large lobby group that plays golf with the legislators like the comercial software industry has. Linux has a large and vocal group but a group without funds to lobby (put money in politicians pockets). There should be another way to reach to politicians but today money seems to be their primary goal in life tightly followed by power. One possible way would be to try and get the larger companies using linux (AOL, RH, SuSe, IBM etc) together into a group that looks after the interest of open source. I have a strong feeling that all the little companies combined into one entity can make a difference. Other industries have common groups that tends to thier lobbying need so it shouldnt be impossible for open source to have one either. I know there are groups out ther already but im talking about a group of companies, not individuals. Individuals are lucky if they can make even a blipp on the radar whereas if IBM and a group of other companies combined would make the radar look like a christmas tree.

Re:Lobby group needed.

[jonwil]

AOL is the last company that should be involved in anything like this.
AOL = AOL/TW
AOL/TW owns several members of the MPAA & RIAA (who are the enemy with laws like SSSCA and DMCA)
I cant think of too many cases where AOL has been friendly to open source. Mozilla didnt come from AOL, it came from netscape.

Basicly, anyone involved in open source could be involved with this Open Source Association Of America. For example: Red Hat, IBM, SuSe, FSF, OSDN (including sourceforge), mozilla.org, Apache people and others. Such a society could provide assistance, lobbying and stuff with regards to cases where a Big Company is doing stuff thats anti-open source (such as M$ suing someone for figuring out the windows media file formats or blizzard (aka Vivendi Universal) suing someone for figuring out the Battle.Net protocols.)
We need to lobby for laws that protect open source. And also for laws that make reverse engineering 100% legal. Reverse engineering is important to enable Open Source projects to interact with Closed file formats and protocols. Too many companies are using closed file formats, protocols etc to keep open source alternatives out. This practice has been going on since the days of Richard M Stallman and the famous "Laser Printer" incident and it needs to be stopped now.

Re:Lobby group needed.

[capt.Hij]

The best way to get the politicos on the bandwagon is to create more open source tools that they will use. For example software for creating political websites that include pages for credit card "donations." Also, software to help our favorite uncle to coordinate information across different states to support homeland defense. How about software for better voting procedures? (Nah - that one has faded from the radar.)

Once the politicos see the value of Open Source and see it as filling a need that they understand, then it will be something that they value.

Re:Lobby group needed.

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

that plays golf with the legislators
Maybe someone should get Tiger Woods interested in Open Source?

More info on the UCITA

[MiTEG]

For those of you who (like me) have a limited knowledge about the UCITA, Infoworld as an excellent summary of what it is and the problems with it.

What it essentially seems to do is make EULA's legally binding and allows them to be undisclosed until after the sale is made. It doesn't seem so much anti-open source as it pro-commercial software.

Re:More info on the UCITA

[Zocalo]

Actually, "make EULA's legally binding and allows them to be undisclosed until after the sale is made" sounds more pro-open source to me. I mean, what fsck-wit is going to pay a chunk of cash for what could easily turn out to be a completly bug-ridden PoS, with no refund because you've opened the box and require you to perform demeaning sexual acts for the personal gratifaction of the software vendor?

Oh, wait a minute, apart from the sexual acts, a large proportion of commercial software fits that description already, doesn't it?

Re:More info on the UCITA

[RickHunter]

You weren't around when this first came up a few years back, were you?

Let me summarize why its bad for Open Source, then. It specifies that an EULA can forcibly modify practically any aspect of contract or copyright law, and does not have to be disclosed until some arbitrary point until after the sale.

Okay, you think, all is well and good. Blatant power grab translates to more fear of closed-source software, which means more open source/free software in use. Right?

Well, the problem is that this also modifies the 'defaults' for software and what can modify those. Namely, I seem to remember that it instituted stricter liability for software. Which can only be overrided by a shrink-wrap EULA.

The GPL, BSD license, Apache License, MPL, APL, and X11 license, among numerous others, are not shrink-wrap EULAs. Totally different category of contract, in fact. Thus, there is no way for the developers of gcc to disclaim liability.

As linked by other posters, http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/ucita.html provides a very good explanation of why this law is Bad.

Re:More info on the UCITA

[WNight]

Try suing someone for a bug in GCC. Seriously, try.

How much is the award going to be? Three times what you paid? A hundred times? Still nothing.

If I give you a gift you can't sue me if it's defective. (You could perhaps have me arrested for a crime if it was harmful and I misrepresented it.) Gifts are free and as such don't have any implied contract (like there is for a sale) so nothing gets agreed to and nothing is binding, except the assigning of ownership (in most cases).

Re:More info on the UCITA

[RickHunter]

The problem, I believe, was that there were either minimum fines, or fines based on "damage done", not "damage done x cost of software". Remember the "damage done" figures for a simple web page defacement? They're usually in the millions, if not billions. Can the gcc developers prove that their software did not cause that much damage, in court? Because that's what this law would require they do.

Re:More info on the UCITA

[WNight]

Then they'd look at it from the angle of no contract being entered into with the user.

There are implied contracts of sale. You don't need to sign anything when buying a book, but they're bound by a few implied warranties (even if they say otherwise) such as that the product must be what they claimed.

If you get a gift, there are no implied warranties. You can't sue someone if they give you a TV and it breaks, even if you think they probably bought the cheapest one they could.

In the case of a hacker defacing a website, claimed damages might be fairly high, but in product liability, if a product merely fails to do the expected job the judgements are usually related to purchase price. (If it blows up, or injures someone in an unexpected way, that's different.)

For the reason of $0 price (low damages) and the fact that it's a gift, I can't see free software suffering from this at all.

Re:More info on the UCITA

[RickHunter]

Except that, as I was trying to say, this law changes that. Read RMS writeup on it - he explains things fairly well. This law is both a power grab by proprietary software companies and an attempt to kill Free Software. Or was, I think its mostly dead now.

Here are the e-mail address for the commissioners

[Critical_]

Again, no need to mod this up...

NCCUSL Commissioner Email Addresses

Alaska
art@dillonfindley.com
Deborah_Behr@law.state.ak.us
lsjkj@aol.com
wgc@customcpu.com

Alabama
RepGaines@aol.com
rmccurle@law.ua.edu
tjones@law.ua.edu
bruce@hwnn.com

Arkansas
jpender@pmppa.com
larry@arkleg.state.ar.us
david@nixonlaw.com
pcarroll@roselawfirm.com
jdeacon@barrettdeacon.com

Arizona
henderson@nt.law.arizona.edu
l.lemon@azbar.org
tberg@fclaw.com

California
bion.gregory@ccusl.ca.gov
darlinghallrae@compuserve.com
elihu2000@aol.com
wburke@shearman.com
senator.sher@sen.ca.gov
nsterling@clrc.ca.gov
Pamela_Chin@parsons.com
Ronald.phillips@pepperdine.edu
williamsrc@aol.com

Colorado
charley.pike@state.co.us
russgeor@sni.net
lw2demuth@worldnet.att.net
tomg@grimshawharring.com
bkreplep@aol.com

Connecticut
bhawkins@goodwin.com
david.biklen@po.state.ct.us
john.langbein@yale.edu
pavetti@aol.com
lmorgan@rjmlawct.com
WBreetz@law.uconn.edu

District of Columbia
bkass@kass-skalet.com
cbrookinshudson@dccouncil.washington.dc.us
zeldonj@dcsc.gov
efdyke@venable.com
jamescmckay@yahoo.com

Delaware
mhoughton@mnat.com
ann.c.stilson@law.widener.edu
robinsonr@ce.net

Florida
lstagg@akerman.com
ecutl@carltonfields.com
ehrhardt@law.fsu.edu
hkittles@hklaw.com
jessen.linda@leg.state.fl.us
jmorse@law.fsu.edu

Georgia
mwmacy@aol.com
rwellman@arches.uga.edu
rgm@hbss.net

Hawaii
ekent@hawaii.edu
jachanin@hotmail.com
toyofuku@pixi.com
hiaglegis@yahoo.com
lewart@goodsill.com
takayama@capitol.hawaii.gov

Iowa
cdmahon@aol.com
Sheldon-kurtz@uiowa.edu
david.walker@drake.edu

Idaho
dghiger@stoel.com
pckm@marshallbatt.com

Illinois
ctabb@law.uiuc.edu
hjs@arnstein.com
mbgetty@aol.com
r-picker@uchicago.edu
richwards@legis.state.il.us
tryder@gtec.com
tjmccrackenjr@ameritech.net
jeremiah@hopsut.com
harry_leinenweber@ilnd.uscourts.gov
diane_ford@gov.state.il.us

Indiana
GBepko@iupui.edu
S40@ai.org
mts@starkey-law.com
hpatchel@iupui.edu

Kansas
elpom@networksplus.net
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Kentucky
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Missouri
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Mississippi
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Montana
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North Carolina
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North Dakota
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Nebraska
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New Jersey
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New Mexico
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Ohio
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Oklahoma
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Washington
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West Virginia
fordlaw@inetone.net
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stamps4@aol.com

It's bad for all consumers!

[Adrian Lopez]

UCITA is bad for users of Free Software, but it's also bad for users of proprietary software. It lends validity to the concept of a shrink-wrap license, which means the software vendor can impose pretty much arbitrary restrictions on the use of a software package. Suddenly all those EULAs become legally binding contracts. All it would take to restrict your rights as a customer is a list of terms. It's way too easy.

Just imagine restrictions on the number of people allowed to use a software program, or website terms stipulating that whatever you write becomes the property of the company behind the website. Such terms are not unheard of, and UCITA would turn these and many others into binding restrictions.

Re:It's bad for all consumers!

[altgrr]

Suddenly all those EULAs become legally binding contracts

cexx.org has a campaign for a Software Vendors' License Agreement somewhere - basically, you get the software vendor to agree to it (and I think that getting a T-shirt saying "By selling computer software to me, you are agreeing to the terms of the Software Vendors' License Agreement", and pointing to a website, is sufficient for agreement, providing you wear the t-shirt when you buy the software in the store), and it overrides terms in the EULA.

Of course, I'm not sure whether it's legally binding, but it could be tried...

What's the problem?

[aug24]

It seems to only apply where there is a *contract*, which isn't relevant to most OS Projects.

It might be bad for end-users if it makes the "we offer no warranty whatsoever but we take your first born child" EULAs valid, but it seems irrelevent to those of us who never use them.

Tell me how that's wrong...?

clarification

[Adrian Lopez]

I said UCITA is "bad for users of Free Software" when I really meant to say that it's bad for Free Software in general (the FSF has a good explanation of it).

Having said that, UCITA is indeed bad for users of Free Software. When Free Software authors are held liable for defects while software companies are allowed to disclaim liability (exactly the opposite of the way it should be!), both the developers and users of Free Software suffer. When proprietary vendors are allowed to create closed and legally inaccessible file formats, the developers and users of Free Software suffer greatly.

UCITA is an immense threat to anybody who is not a big corporation.

Re:clarification

[Glenn R-P]

Wait a minute ... the GPL says:

"Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software."

(emphasis mine)

AFAIK, UCITA has no power to change that.

It does change that, though. It says that warranty against patent
infringment must be specifically disclaimed, or you provide a warranty
despite your "no warranty" clause.

We added the UCITA-specific language to the libpng license (the real
one used by libpng, not the one posted at OSI) several years ago.

Glenn

KISS Rule

[N8F8]

IMHO the letter doesn't hit the mark. Since UCITA and intellectual property rights are so difficult in the first place the letter should be short, to the point and easily understandable. Not to mention that the conference is in FOUR DAYS. maybe a little late to sway opinions.

example:

TO: NCCUSL Commissioners
FROM: Joe Blow
RE: Discussion of UCITA on July 29, 2002 at NCCUSL Annual Conference

I am an Open Source software developer who is very concerned about the adoption of UCITA. UCITA seeks to unfairly tilt the time-tested balance in commercial law between the needs of businesses and consumers. Commercial law has weathered the test of time very well. With the advent on the computer era many special interrest groups have sucessfully lobbied to gain "special" rights for businesses that tilt the balance of Consumer Rights.

blah blah Open Source is....

blah blah here are the specific parts if UCITA that hard individuals rights and Open source business models...

Re:KISS Rule

[Sj0]

Real programmers don't comment!
It was hard to write, It should be hard to read!


so use comments to make it harder to read. Try to break the readers spirit.

b += (a -= b); //I don't know what this does...

a -= (b -= a); //man was I stoned when I wrote that...

char *c;
c =(a + b) - (a == b);//I don't know what this does, but my program started working after I did it...

*c = a && b; //I guess I shouldn't code when I'm smoking crack anymore... :)

Tomorrow in the mail

[Trepidity]

Dear Red Hat,

We have received your letter dated 29 July 2002 requesting that we rescind the UCITA regulations. Rest assured that we have been completely unaware of the deleterious impact these regulations might have on open source software; had we known we would never have adopted them at all. The Commissioners apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and will now move to reverse UCITA's adoption immediately. Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention, and please don't hesitate to contact us again if you have any further concerns.

Sincerely,
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws

But WHY is UCITA contrary to Open Source?

[JeffMings]

I have read the articles here and on several other sites, and I've read many Infoworld articles over the past few years on UCITA, and I _still_ don't see how it is damaging to Open Source. As pointed out earlier, this page seeks to address the concerns of Open Source advocates, and does a good job of such. I have understood the dangers of large proprietary corps like M$ being able to turn software off and abuse consumers in other ways, but I have not been able to find a single credible reference to how UCITA will hurt Linux developers or users. Can someone post a rational and clear explanation using traceable references to UCITA language that demonstrates the potential for harm? I'm certain that many others would also appreciate clarification.
Thanks

Re:But WHY is UCITA contrary to Open Source?

[Junta]

IIRC, it not only strengthens the 'shrink wrap' licenses, but also sets a default liability. So just saying 'this comes with no warranty' in a file somewhere does not free the programmer of responsibilty. Commercial companies don't care as they are explicitly allowed to shirk this liability through their shrink-wrap license, but open source applications can't really have a shrink-wrap license, so no matter how much you deny liability, you are stuck with it..

Question about my own code

[Mr_Silver]

I have a product that isn't open source but given away for free. You have the executables, you can copy it and give to your friends - you just don't have the source. In short, it's a free beer application rather than free speech.

Now, I used a EULA (if you like) on my installer to disclaim responsibility if the program breaks and other various stuff.

Now, as I see it (and please correct me if i'm wrong) the UCITA would benifit me because my disclaimers would be legally enforcable. If the UCITA went away, then I would be stuck in a rather tricky situation where I could be held liable for all the stuff that my licence disclaims.

Or am I wrong? Can someone please explain how the UCITA would appect the hobbyiest programmer like myself that doesn't use the GPL (and hence doesn't distribute source).

Re:Question about my own code

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, as I see it (and please correct me if i'm wrong) the UCITA would benifit me because my disclaimers would be legally enforcable. If the UCITA went away, then I would be stuck in a rather tricky situation where I could be held liable for all the stuff that my licence disclaims.

Actually, the UCITA contains more stringent laws on when you can disclaim a warranty, and the length to which you can do so. It does enforce EULAs (to an extent), but it also forces particular warranties onto all software, for which the distributor, publisher, and/or developer will be held responsible.

In other words, UCITA states that your disclaimers of warranty may not be legal at all, and that you may still be held responsible. Of course, the letter and most of the comments here haven't really pointed out that which is the most common issue for open source developers (since the GPL and most other open source/free licenses disclaim all warranties).

UCITA

[esap]

See: http://www.nccusl.org/nccusl/UCITA-2001-comm-fin.h tm. It has a report that discusses many aspects of UCITA.

Re:UCITA

[mcfiddish]

Reading this document, it's even more unclear what the UCITA is supposed to do, since it reads like a list of apologies and situations where the UCITA doesn't apply.


Section 435. ACQUISITION OF LICENSEE'S CHILDREN
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), the licensor is entitled to take any or all of the licensee's children and use them to pull the executive's carriage around town.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply if the licensee has no children. In this event, surgery to remove licensee's duodenum will be performed and said duodenum will be discarded.

Several constitutional scholars have made the claim that either taking the licensee's children or performing invasive surgery might be construed as antithetical to the concept of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Based on these discussions, the Committee recommends that section 435 not apply to licensees with one or more child or duodenum.

What's is the extent of UCITA, really?

[vidnet]

First, here's my brief understanding of UCITA (but IANAL):
It's a set of default laws regarding software development/distribution that apply where the parts have not agreed on anything. Plus a set of mandatory laws which can't be disagreed upon "to protect the user".

Does this mean that UCITA removes the responsibility from the shoulders of the luser in case something goes wrong?

Will it allow people to treat their computers like imported au pairs, with any results being the programmers responsibilty? What if someone deletes all their stuff with fdisk?

What if they use 'find / > /dev/hda'? Who's to blame?

I would assume that if the user is stupid and root at the same time, that's his/her/its problem, and no matter how many laws you have, idiots can only blame themselves for being idiots.

Of course, I'm not from the USA. In my country, Norway, lawyers can't even take percentages of the winnings to keep idiots from the nothing-to-loose suing. (And may I say, that's the best law since Thou shalt not kill)

If any of the above are the developers fault, can't you just put a notice on kernel.org/gnu.org that "You have entered restricted web space, please leave at once. Do not download anything." I'm sure you could somehow convince a jury that the luser 'hacked' kernel.org/gnu.org to gain access to data that wasn't intended for him/her/it in the first place (I mean, if it's illegal to use people's wide open SMB shares, surely the same applies to HTTP?)

MOD parent up!

[FyRE666]

Yeah ok the grammar may not be "Senator level", but the parent has made a good point! I'm glad I'm in the UK; the current patent, DMCA etc laws in the US completely stifle any possibility of anyone coming up with any new invention or marketable idea. Sure, you might be able to start a ball rolling, but as soon as it looks like your idea might make money you'll find [INSERT SOULLESS CORPORATION] unleashing their little pet lawyers at you to either (a) convince some half-witted jury they own the patent or (b) bankrupt you, then take the idea...

I'm almost glad I live in the UK...

Unless...

[gillbates]

You include a click-through license that states:

1. That you are in no way liable for any damages the software may cause;
2. That in the event of litigation, you, the end user, agrees to pay all of the defendant's legal fees, transportation costs (if any), costs due to lost time, etc... (Microsoft used a variation of this in their license agreements)
3. That you, the end user, agrees that since the software is provided for free, you have no expectations regarding merchantibily or fitness for a particular purpose.

What the UCITA does is make the click-through and shrinkwrap licensing have the force of law. Though I don't like this prospect, it can be used to keep free software authors out of legal trouble.

Re:Unless...

[Adrian Lopez]

What about all the free software that has already been released? You can't change the licenses of old versions of software already out there. In any case, the greater implications are significant enough that all kinds of users should oppose it.

Caveate

[FreeUser]

If, like me, you've never heard of UCITA and are looking to form your own opinion, a summary is available here:

I hope, before you formed that opinion, that you crossreferenced the UCITA promotional link you provided with other, more balanced links, almost all of which are critical of UCITA (including every software manufacturer, be it open source or proprietary, with the exception of Microsoft which as everyone here knows has its own, monopolistic agenda).

Do not be misled by one promotional site being run by the very persons who introduced the legislation to begin with. They are not trying to give you a balanced perspective on the issue.

Re:Ucita online told this

[autechre]

It basically states that even with UCITA, software is still allowed to be sold "as is" (without a warranty). The GPL is an example of this type of software license.

Why UCITA is bad, in under 50 words

[NFW]

"We need to remember that there is a big difference between being pro-business and being pro-marketplace. Capitalism is all about marketplaces. Capitalism fails if we try to preserve a given business model."

- Bob Frankston

Re:Bullets and ballots?

[Rimbo]

I understand your frustration; however, we must not lower ourselves to beneath their level with such thoughts.

They stay in office largely because of a lack of education. Ultimately, the burden of education lies with the people who have the most knowledge. In other words, it is geeks like us who are responsible for educating the rest of society about technology; unfortunately, most of us are not exactly great communicators. We prefer to communicate with or through machines rather than face to face.

They stay alive because assassination is an even worse crime than writing bad legislation. The success of democracy depends on working within the system to effect change; once someone decides that he is above the system, that he can take the law into his own hands, then he puts himself beneath the slime who do this, and becomes a common murderer.

Just think of how people view Timothy McVeigh, abortion doctor killers, and terrorists, and you will see why they stay alive: Because killing them is much more wrong.

Red Hat, like any other company, has a financial stake that they must defend. Their position on UCITA is somewhat biased. Open Source software as a business model might be harmed by UCITA; however, it is about as likely to prevent people from working on Open Source as warning labels on packs of cigarettes are to keep people from smoking. People will still do it, because it is highly addictive, even if they later learn that it is bad for them. Open Source, that is. :)

Summary?

[xant]

Here's a better one. (Yes, it's Stallman, and I find him annoying too. But at least it's just as unbalanced as the original link, which was probably planted here on /. by a UCITA lobby group.)

Plus it's on the EFF website, which is an organization I don't find annoying.

Don't say you're a libertarian

[cyberformer]

Or green, independent, etc. They'll dismiss you as a nutball, and assume that your vote won't count anyway. Say "I have not decided whether to vote Democrat or Republican."