Subject: UCITA

From: "M. Nicklaus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 10:48:16 -0400

Dear list members,

This is slightly off-topic since it doesn't concern computational chemistry
software exclusively.  On the other hand, since it *does* potentially affect
buyers and users (at least in the U.S.) of *all* software, including
computational chemistry, I'd like to pose the question to this list.  (I
apologize to those CCL members who are outside the U.S.; however, I believe
software users are facing similar issues in other countries as well.)

There has been an intense discussion in trade publications for months, and
recently also in the general press, about a new law proposal governing software
sales and licensing, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA).
This draft model law is intended to be passed by the individual state
legislatures.  I'll not go into the history, background and details of UCITA,
all of which can be read about on web sites such as http://www.4cite.org/.

The general criticism I've seen voiced against UCITA is that it dramatically
shifts the balance of existing contract law in favor of software vendor.  
Specific provisions that have been deemed particulary worrisome include the
right for software vendors to shut down mission critical software remotely
without court approval and without incurring liability; to permit software
vendors to avoid liability for damage caused by bugs known to the vendor, and
undisclosed to the licensee, when the software was bought; to allow software
vendors to prohibit public criticism of their product; to bind the purchaser to
licensing terms disclosed only after the purchaser pays for the software, and
allows the software vendor to change the terms unilaterally by e-mail; and
others.

Such licensing terms were often part of license agreements in the past, but they
turned out to be rarely enforceable in court.  Now, the critics say, UCITA would
sanction all this by law.

I am not a legal expert, and I don't know how much the computational chemistry
software field would be affected by it.  Since UCITA is about to become law in
Maryland, I'd like to ask the CCL members how they see UCITA affecting their
future software purchases, and how they plan to handle the situation: just
accept it; or try to renegotiate licensing contracts with software vendors;
contact their legislators; ignore the licensing terms; simply not buy
UCITA-governed software; only use open source and GPL'd programs; or...?

I'll summarize the answers for the list.

Marc

(As always, these are my personal views and not necessarily those of NIH)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Marc C. Nicklaus                        National Institutes of Health
 E-mail: [email-masked]               Bldg 37, Rm 5B29
 Phone:  (301) 402-3111                  37 Convent Dr, MSC 4255       
 Fax:    (301) 402-2275                  BETHESDA, MD 20892-4255    USA 
      http://rex.nci.nih.gov/RESEARCH/basic/medchem/mcnbio.htm
    Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry, National Cancer Institute
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