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Comment by IanKelling | Hacker News Reader

FSF assignments have had full digital support in every country and very fast since 11/2016. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-now-offering-paperle...

Sad to see this outdated info in the top comment.

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> With the advice of counsel, we can begin accepting scanned copies of assignments from all contributors, regardless of where they reside. With a small update to our assignment contract, we can finally make it possible for all contributors to avoid having to send their forms via the post.

Uhh, having to scan a printed and signed document is not much better than having to use snail mail.

When I see "full digital support" I understand that to mean I can use just a computer.

Many other projects accept a digital signature (basically filling out a form -- in a browser). Why isn't that sufficient for the FSF?

These days whenever I'm asked to print, sign, and scan a form I now just use OSX Preview to insert my digital signature, save it, and send it back. (I have no idea if there are legal issues with this but nobody's ever complained to me that this isn't okay.)

I still hate when I'm asked to do this but it's vastly more convenient than actually printing and scanning a form.

This is a legit/acknowledged way to meet the FSF's requirements.

I've done this using Inkscape a few times, usually works but I've had one company come back to me saying "uh no, print it out". They were in finance so maybe a regulatory thing or maybe just luck.

Good god, if you don't care about the project enough to not sign a piece of paper and scan it, just don't contribute to it. FSF has programmers and lawyers alike that are also working to further computing freedom, I don't believe they are imposing this paperwork for messing around.

> Good god, if you don't care about the project enough to not sign a piece of paper and scan it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to sign an agreement form with one's GPG private key rather than having to show a physical signature?

Well played, sir. Given the nature of FSF's business you'd think they'd be on the cutting edge of digital identification and authentication. GPG keys a thousand times better at properly identifying an owner than an easily forged pen-and-paper signature.

For that matter, why not have a blockchain assignment process? Given what a vanguard for technology FSF used to be it's a shame to watch it devolve at the pace of bureaucracy.

> Given the nature of FSF's business you'd think they'd be on the cutting edge of digital identification and authentication.

The FSF is very careful about the legal system. Signed paper contracts are a robust legal technology. When something important happens, they don't want a judge to be distracted by unfamiliar things.

edit: they also have digital signing in a couple of different forms.

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-now-offering-paperle...

Would that be valid in a court? Because I believe that's where these papers are going to be used at.

It would be a matter of checking if there's any judicial precedent for digital signatures. If not, then an expert witness explaining the principles behind public/private keys, PKIs (how they're used in industry to verify the authenticity of servers), and how it compares to the "web of trust" model in terms of verifying authenticity and how it applies to FSF contributors.

Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG. Your silly hacker shenanigans don't hold up in court. Or maybe they will, but it's a gamble.

Yes, it's a creaky, old system, but that's how it works: with paper and signatures and old, wrinkly men sitting on benches deciding your fate based on their incomplete understanding of modern technology.

> Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG.

As I mentioned in another comment, having an expert witness testify about public/private keys, PKI, "Web of Trust" should be sufficient in court.

Alternatively, passing legislation that gives a digital signature prima facie status in court would work as well.

Passing legislation or bringing in expert witnesses (and risk having their testimony being questioned) are all harder than just appeasing the old, wrinkly guys sitting on the benches.

> Alternatively, passing legislation that gives a digital signature prima facie status in court would work as well.

All US jurisdictions already have such laws (in virtually all states, the same law—UETA—has been adopted, and E-SIGN is the federal law.)

Foreign jurisdictions may or may not have laws with similar effect, though I suspect they are pretty common by now, at least in the developed world.

There's a difference between "electronic signatures" and "digital signatures" [1]. I was referring to digital signatures, but, from what I've read and understand, the laws you cite refer to electronic signatures.

[1] https://www.assuresign.com/electronic-signatures-vs-digital-...

Digital sigbatures and electronic signatures are, to be sure, different things (you can digitally sign something without, for instance, any capture of intent to be a legal signsture) but, digital signatures are also a means of achieving a valid electronic signature as defined in those laws.

Obviously, people selling centralized document storage and electronic signature services are incentivized to obfuscate this as much as possible.

> digital signatures are also a means of achieving a valid electronic signature as defined in those laws.

If that's the case, then why does the FSF require scanning a printout with a physical signature (as one commenter mentioned) instead of opting for a digital signature of that document?

Does case law pertaining to the laws you cited support the assertion that digital signatures have the same legal meaning as an electronic or physical signature?

> If that's the case, then why does the FSF require scanning a printout with a physical signature (as one commenter mentioned) instead of opting for a digital signature of that document?

I dunno, ask the FSF what their reasoning is. Among the numerous plausible explanations is that they are concerned about laws in some non-US jurisdictions, or that they haven't expended resources examining other options.

> Does case law pertaining to the laws you cited support the assertion that digital signatures have the same legal meaning as an electronic or physical signature?

I didn't assert that case law made digital signatures equivalent to electronic signatures (in fact, I explicitly pointed to one way in which it is possible for a digital signature to fail to meet the similar requirements in UETA and E-SIGN for an electronic signature.)

For some reason, I don't see a reply link for your most recent post [1].

> I didn't assert that case law made digital signatures equivalent to electronic signatures

You're correct; I didn't read your original response carefully enough. Also, the comment [2] that stated that the FSF does indeed allow for digital signatures (in the US at least) definitely settles the issues and answers my original question.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14824452)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823665

> Lawyers and judges don't understand GPG. Your silly hacker shenanigans don't hold up in court.

Presumably, lawyers and judges will understand state (notably, UETA, in all but three states) and federal laws (notably, E-SIGN) governing the use and validity of electronic signatures.

> Presumably,

Are you erring on the side of legal caution? 'Cause I assure you the FSF is.

This has been available for contributors in the United States for some years now, and I've used it to sign the assignment documents in the past. It might not be available in all countries though.

> If you use GPG, you can sign your assignment using a detached signature in the following manner:

> gpg -a --detach-sig ASSIGNMENT

> Where ASSIGNMENT is the PDF file(s) as you have received it from us.

> Then simply email the assignment, key ID, and signature file back to us at assign@gnu.org. Please make sure that your key is listed on a public keyserver.

I'm actually surprised that no one mentioned this sooner. It's too bad that this isn't an option for most other legal documents that one has to submit in a lot of situations.

FWIW: the term in the industry for that is "electronic signature". "Digital" signatures usually refer to crypto.

And one reason for worry, historically, is that international law for paperless/signatureless contract enforcement is sort of a mess. Wikipedia has a page here with links to various nations and their requirements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_signatures_and_law

Not a lawyer nor speaking for the FSF. But it seems not entirely unreasonable to me that a conservative approach to copyright assignment would have picked the path they chose. It's just a hard problem.

If you want to ding the FSF, ding them on the copyright assignment requirement. Whining about the process seems a little too much to me.

For what it's worth, I do all my "scanning" with my phone camera these days. There are various apps that can even make it look like a traditionally scanned document in addition to converting it to PDF.

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