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Re: Changing a license of a unmaintained software



Scott James Remnant <scott@netsplit.com>:

> Electronic Communications Act 2000
> 
> 7. - (1) In any legal proceedings- 
>     
>         (a) an electronic signature incorporated into or logically
>         associated with a particular electronic communication or
>         particular electronic data, and
>   
>         (b) the certification by any person of such a signature,
>         
> shall each be admissible in evidence in relation to any question as to
> the authenticity of the communication or data or as to the integrity of
> the communication or data.

I think this section merely states explicitly what was already
believed to be true as there is no previous law saying that such
things should not be admissible in evidence. I might be wrong.

Dylan Thurston <dpt@math.harvard.edu>:

> Are you aware that it is extremely rude to reply to a message
> containing references to specific UK laws, call it "bullshit" and
> "disagree strongly", but neglect to perform your own research and not
> want to "bother" discussing it or "waste time" on the issue?

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude (I'm rather tired after spending all
day tiling a bathroom). I'm really more worried about wasting other
debian-legal readers' time than my own.

>   Did you look up the law, for instance?

Yes, I did, but I'm more concerned with the logic of "what does a GPG
signature really tell you" than with the legal technicalities of
whether certain kinds of evidence may be presented in court. Courts
don't usually accept scientifically invalid evidence (a signature made
with a "secret" key that has been published would be in this category)
but they do sometimes exclude scientifically valid evidence ("hearsay"
and previous convictions are in this category - but that's criminal,
not civil, of course).

Edmund



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