[ox-en] A Battle Over Software Licensing
- From: "tOM Trottier" <Tom Abacurial.com>
- Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 01:55:45 -0400
NEW ECONOMY
A Battle Over Software Licensing
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
The battle lines are drawn in the struggle for a uniform standard in
software licensing for all 50 states.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/16/technology/16NECO.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 16, 2002
A Battle Over Software Licensing
By LAURIE J. FLYNN
A proposed law intended to standardize software licensing from state to
state has ignited a battle between its supporters ? most notably, the
business software industry ? and the many forces who have joined to defeat
it.
Opposition has united a strange collection of bedfellows: librarians,
information-technology managers and corporate chief information officers,
insurance and aerospace executives, and consumer groups.
...
Three years ago, a conference of lawmakers from various states agreed to a
version of the legislation, and started circulating it for adoption by
individual states. So far, only two have passed it: Maryland and Virginia.
Most of the nation's state attorneys general oppose the legislation,
primarily because they see it as potentially overriding various state
consumer protection laws already on the books.
One of the proposed law's main effects would be to make binding contracts
of the consumer licenses that come with shrink-wrapped software ? despite
the fact the buyer often cannot read the licensing agreement before buying
and opening the package.
...
The original version of the proposed code went so far as to let software
companies electronically disable a program that was being used in violation
of its license agreement. While that proviso was eliminated by recent
amendments, critics like Mr. Lobert say so many loopholes remain in the
statute that the amendments are almost meaningless.
...
"If Ucita passes in the states," said David McMahon, a consumer affairs
lawyer in Charleston, Va., and the consumer representative on the board of
the opposition group, "anybody buying new computer software will have less
protection than when a consumer buys a cheap used car."
Copyright 2002 The New York Times
------- Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur -----------------
,__@ Tom A. Trottier [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] fax:231-6115
_-\_<, 758 Albert St.,Ottawa ON Canada K1R 7V8
(*)/'(*) ICQ:57647974 N45.412 W75.714
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Laws are the spider's webs which,
if anything small falls into them they ensnare it,
but large things break through and escape.
--Solon, statesman (c.638-c558 BCE)
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/