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Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

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Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#31

Post by somery »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #21
somery wrote: post #11

Hi everyone, my name is Alex and I'm the creator of DocuSeal. I was not happy with the existing mainstream document signing solutions so I decided to create an open-source alternative. I've been working on this project since the middle of May and here is what the tool can do so far: - PDF form fields builder - 10 field types available (Signature/Date/File/Checkbox etc) - Multiple submitters per document - Automated e…

hey. do you have support for pfx based signatures like jsignpdf does?

Currently it’s possible to sign documents only using the autogenerated pkcs7 certificate in self-hosted DocuSeal (it’s done automatically be default).

But it should be doable to make it work with different certificate formats to bring your own certificates.

I’d be happy to explore those options and would appreciate it if you could open on issue on GH in case you’re interested to have this supported this in the tool.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#33

Post by supermatt »

The way a system like docusign works is that it is a (trusted) independent third party that will verify that the owner of email address X is the one that "signed" the specific version of an agreement.

By self-hosting, you have access to the infrastructure and can manipulate it to your will. There is no proof that the counterparty signed anything - you could just manipulate it to say they did.

This potential for misuse could make it difficult to enforce your contract should you be required to do so.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#34

Post by lolinder »

reisr3 wrote: post #5

What is the bar for a "legally binding digital signature"? Is this a very complicated topic - or is it quite simple? I can sign a PDF with OSX Preview for free. I can pay a bunch of money to sign with Docusign. Both produce a PDF with a digital image of my signature. I assume both documents constitute a legally binding agreement, so long as I actually preformed the digital signature. What justification do the e-signa…

See the recent Canadian case of the thumbs up emoji signature [0]. The bar for a legally binding contract is much lower than what most people believe. The main thing you need is to be able to prove that the other party actually did express their assent to the contract. In the thumbs up case, who sent the text was not disputed, so the issue hinged on whether a reasonable person would interpret thumbs up emoji as expressing assent.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36618650

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#36

Post by somery »

woodylondon wrote: post #23

As i understood it the difference was esignature (was what this was providing) and esign was to sign with a digital certificate. esignature is plenty for most things. Docudeal looks really cool and simple! and compared to the crazy costs of HelloSign, Docusign etc. One thing I would say is provide a RestAPI so easy to integrate into our own applications so we can have the GUI on our side.

RestAPI integration will be available in August

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#37

Post by lolinder »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #18

The benefit of DocuSign for me is, my clients already use DocuSign and have no problem using it with me.

Do your clients even notice, though?

I'm a rare user of these platforms, but all I ever see is that I get an email with a link to sign something. Sometimes it's DocuSign and sometimes it's Adobe or something else, but I certainly don't feel any loyalty towards one over another, and as a signer, I certainly don't trust the platforms to hold onto my copy for me.

It seems that unless you've got clients who are trying to use DocuSign as their personal document management system, as long as the interaction flow is essentially the same it should be fine.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#38

Post by somery »

tyingq wrote: post #15
ketanip wrote: post #4

Very nice and easy to use product. Loved that you provided an live version to try it without any signup wall or anything. Also won't DocuSign accuse you of "misleading" their customers by using a name that is "too similar" to their ?

It does seem on somewhat dangerous ground for "trademark similarity testing", "consumer perception", etc...with "docu- ". I'd have gone with "DocSeal" or something that was a harder break from the "DocuSxxx" pattern.

Thanks for pointing this out - it actually didn't expect that because of GitHub and GitLab and i haven't hears any trademark dispures between them. When Gitlab differs from Github by only 2 letters - DocuSeal vs DocuSign is already 3 letters.

But i think that's a valid concern and i need to better investigate this - changing the name shouldn't be a problem when the project is still very new.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#39

Post by somery »

Bilal_io wrote: post #30
somery wrote: post #11

Hi everyone, my name is Alex and I'm the creator of DocuSeal. I was not happy with the existing mainstream document signing solutions so I decided to create an open-source alternative. I've been working on this project since the middle of May and here is what the tool can do so far: - PDF form fields builder - 10 field types available (Signature/Date/File/Checkbox etc) - Multiple submitters per document - Automated e…

Thank you for creating this and making it open source. What mechanism(s) is used to ensure non-repudiation? I appreciate that the demo is not behind a sign up wall, but is account creation and email verification required for invitees to sign any documents? Are IP addresses stored as part of the digital signature? Any other mechanism?

IP addresses and browser User Agent strings are stored for each signature/submission - those are the only measures for 'non-repudiation' currently available.

but i think it doens't differ from other mainstream SaaS solutions - if you read through their terms of services - they put 'non-repudiation' liability on users of their services

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#40

Post by quadrature »

somery wrote: post #32
quadrature wrote: post #20

What is the API like ?, is this something I could easily embed into an application ?

embedding will be available in August - the ideas is to create a npm package to bring the PDF document form into apps for developers

thats awesome. great work developing this!
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