Richard Stallman's article remarks that under UCITA, programmers will be retroactively liable for all software they have released in the past -- whether they create licenses in the future or not. I haven't read the entire law myself yet, so if I'm perpetuating a misconception, then smack me for it. However: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." -- Article 1, Section 9, U.S. Constitution Technically speaking, there *might* be a loophole in that UCITA isn't defining any new crimes, just establishing new liability -- but that's a very gray area. Tangentially, I think it could well be argued that UCITA's passage would spawn a slew of nuisance lawsuits that would definitely fall squarely under the definition of ex post facto action. Ex post facto legislation has actually gone through relatively unscathed before (c.f. Clinton's first tax increase, which was backdated), but that doesn't mean that a challenge would fail. I don't doubt that major software manufacturers would then try to sponsor a similar bill with tighter language to avoid the ex post facto concerns, but at least it'd shoot down this attempt.
Slashdot Mirror
Richard Stallman's article remarks that under UCITA, programmers will be retroactively liable for all software they have released in the past -- whether they create licenses in the future or not. I haven't read the entire law myself yet, so if I'm perpetuating a misconception, then smack me for it. However: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." -- Article 1, Section 9, U.S. Constitution Technically speaking, there *might* be a loophole in that UCITA isn't defining any new crimes, just establishing new liability -- but that's a very gray area. Tangentially, I think it could well be argued that UCITA's passage would spawn a slew of nuisance lawsuits that would definitely fall squarely under the definition of ex post facto action. Ex post facto legislation has actually gone through relatively unscathed before (c.f. Clinton's first tax increase, which was backdated), but that doesn't mean that a challenge would fail. I don't doubt that major software manufacturers would then try to sponsor a similar bill with tighter language to avoid the ex post facto concerns, but at least it'd shoot down this attempt.