Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Ed Foster's Gripelog || Oklahoma!!!

Ed Foster's Gripelog || Oklahoma!!!
Some rather strange things have been going on in the Oklahoma legislature lately, including the intriguing story that Microsoft has been crafting the state's amendments to one of those useless, and now possibly dangerous, anti-spyware laws. But as much as I'd like to examine that issue, right now I must focus on a much more obscure piece of Oklahoma legislation that was actually passed in 2005 but is just now being brought into the light of day.

In its 2005 regular session, the Oklahoma legislature enacted HB 2028, a measure primarily devoted to adopting routine amendments to Article 1 of the Uniform Commercial Code. (The venerable UCC, the law that for decades has governed all kinds of business disputes, is in theory supposed to be enacted in a uniform fashion in all 50 states so that the same basic rules apply everywhere.) But tucked into the bill, in a way that was very unlikely to be noticed, were a few amendments to UCC Article 2, the law that relates to the sale of goods. Oklahoma changed the definition of goods covered by Article 2 to say it "does not include information," and the definition of a sales contract added language that excludes a "license of information" from the scope of Article 2.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal. After all, "goods" and "information" certainly do describe two pretty different things, so what's the issue? Well, it's a software problem. Or, more precisely, it's the problem of whether software -- and the infinite variety of everyday goods that certainly contain a software component like computers, cars, TVs, iPods, microwaves, etc. -- will or will not still be covered by UCC Article 2.


Be sure to read the entire article!

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