Re: Why We Must Fight UCITA
On Wed, 02 Feb 2000, you wrote:
> Doesnt this strike anyone as a bit odd that all of this is happening, and
> yet it is not all over the news? Half the links in the message dont exist,
> and the Electronic Frontier Foundation doesnt mention UCITA at all. Anyway,
> what has DVD rom file formats got to do with software licenses for liability
> of faults in software? Also, whoever wrote the addenums at the bottom has no
> idea what they are talking about - the Free Software movement is distinct
> from the open source movement - the Free Software Movement promises Free
> Software, whereas the Open Source movement promises freely available source
> code. So yes, Java is free software, so is Netscape (now).
> Sounds like a hoax to me, folks, but if it is its the most convincing one
> I've come across.
>
> Nick
> P.S. I might be totally wrong, so please dont flame me.
Yes. You're wrong. Richard Stallman is well known and respected in the computer
world. Even so, I checked the links before posting. All work, except for the
magazine article in InfoWorld.
One of the most interesting is this letter from the Federal Trade Commission.
(I suppose you think it is a hoax, too?) http://www.ftc.gov/be/v990010.htm
or this one from the ACM
http://www.acm.org/usacm/copyright/usacm-ucc2b-1098.html
or this one from Consumers Union: http://www.2bguide.com/docs/cu699.html
best of all this one from the Americal Library Association
http://www.ala.org/washoff/ucita.html which has the latest (Jan 2000) copy of
the proposed law and articles expressing strong opposition to it (because it
would make loaning, selling, or giving a book away illegal, along with software)
By the way, this law has some interesting points: One is that you are not
allowed to use your own data, if the manufacturer of the software
that created the data decides to revoke your license to use that software.
i.e. if you created a database of customers using Access, and M$ revoked your
license (with or without cause) you would be prohibited from using any other
database to read that data.
Another was to allow software vendors to electronically disable your
legally owned software via the internet. A third provision allowed software
vendors to disable your existing legal and paid-for copies of their software
when you purchased an upgrade.
This main problem for us little guys is that the law appears to make the
individual programmer fully liable for any damages his/her software may cause,
while not only absolving big software companies from liability, but in effect
releasing them from having to honor any warranties of any kind on their
products.
BTW: it also contained the famous M$ provision that you are not allowed to tell
anyone if you find a bug in the software. Makes me wonder who is backing this
law.
Irv
|
Not Categorized, Please Help
|
|
