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

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

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.

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.

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: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