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What's (Still) Wrong With UCITA
Grant Gross has an article at NewsForge outlining both changes being proposed by the The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws to its version of UCITA (a model intended for adoption by the various state legislatures), and objections raised to the resulting language by Red Hat lawyer Carol Kunze. Among other things, Kunze points out that Free software projects could be effectively discouraged from releasing software if software producers are required to provide warranties -- imagine trying to provide warranties on all the packages available to Debian users, for instance, or every bit of software included with Mandrake Linux.
We in the Free Software community just love to berate the Federal Government for giving in to corporations and lobbyists. We tend to draw a distinct line between what benefits big firms like the RIAA or MPAA and what is morally correct. When the government bows to industry pressure, as in the passage of the DMCA, it is rightly considered a tragedy. We, the consumers, bear the cost in these cases.
So what is the lesson? That we should not allow pragmatic arguments from profit-minded companies to dictate legislation. Such is, unfortunately, the case here. Yes, Red Hat is a "good" company. It has supported Linux and Open Source and contributed to the community as a whole. But when it argues that it could sell more software without the requirements put forth in UCITA, well, we have to call a spade a spade and recognize that, hey, that's just Red Hat looking out for Red Hat. We need to take a step back and see that argument for what it is: an appeal to government for the kind of corporate welfare we Free Software folks usually disdain. Or once again, we, the consumers, shall bear the cost.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
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Ok that changes my view a little. So now I say It would be 'nice' if Iowa fireworks laws were uniform with the fireworks laws of lets say....Wyoming. Sparklers and fricken snakes are gay.