With a little help from my friends, we determined that the other thing I
promised to post was links to UCITA information.
* What is UCITA and why is it a bad thing? Gross summary: it gives
software vendors too much power. As Spaf said, the vendor can
disclaim all liability (which is actually current law, but this
entrenches it), can put in back doors so that they can disable
your copy if they don't like what you are doing with the software,
they are not liable for any losses due to defects & abuses of the
back door, and they can prohibit you from publishing anything
nasty about their software.
* Links:
* Opposing UCITA:
* http://www.ucita.com/
* American Library Association's concerns
http://www.ala.org/washoff/ucita/
* Richard Stallman writes about UCITA for the Electronic
Freedom Foundation (EFF)
http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/UCITA_UCC2B/20000131_fight_ucita_stallman_paper.html
* The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) opposes
UCITA
http://www.idg.net/idgns/1999/07/23/ACMFearsProposedLawReducesQuality.shtml
* Supporting UCITA
* http://www.ucitaonline.com/
* UCITA Across America: UCITA was attempted as Federal legislation,
and failed. Its proponents then went to the state level, and are
trying to pass it state-by-state, which makes organizing
grass-roots opposition more difficult.
* Here's a nice matrix of UCITA status across the states
provided by the IEEE. Unfortunately, it is only current up
to 2000
http://www.ieeeusa.org/forum/grassroots/ucita/statematrix.html
* Critical summary:
* Has passed UCITA: Maryland, Virginia,
* Has passed UCITA Bomb Shelter Laws that invalidate
UCITA: Iowa
* UCITA in Oregon:
* UCITA was introduced in the Oregon Legislature by Rep. Max
Williams <http://www.leg.state.or.us/williams/home.htm>
(R-Tigerd). It died in committee, but from private e-mail
with Rep. Williams, I suspect it will return in the next
legislative session. "Bring it 'round again and again until
it passes" is a common UCITA tactic in many states.
* An anti-UCITA bill was introduced in Oregon by Rep. Phil
Barnhardt <http://www.leg.state.or.us/barnhart/home.htm>
(D-Eugene), which also died.
Coming up: my represntative ( Jackie Dingfelder
<http://www.leg.state.or.us/dingfelder/home.htm> , D-Portland) is
holding a Legislative Town Hall Saturday April 20th. To include Federal
Congressman Earl Blumenauer <http://www.house.gov/blumenauer/> , and
state Rep. Jeff Merkley <http://www.leg.state.or.us/merkley/home.htm>
(D-East Portland). Event to take place at Parkrose High School, rooms 1,
2, and 3, 12003 NE Shaver Street. I plan to show up and make a nuiscance
of myself :) about UCITA (for the state people) and DMCA and CBDTPA
<http://www.digitalconsumer.org/cbdtpa/> (for Blumenauer).
I'm a lot more likely to do this if I'm not the only one, so please mail
me if you're actually planning on attending the meeting on April 20th.
Crispin
--
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
Security Hardened Linux Distribution: http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun May 26 2002 - 11:39:47 PDT