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Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

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Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#11

Post by alexopensource »

wrs wrote: post #4
yodon wrote: post #2

My understanding (possibly incorrect) is that competing with DocuSign is hard because of the need to follow obscure state and National laws (many of which are defined by case law rather than published law) in order for the signatures to be legally binding. Is that the case? And if so, is there evidence OpenSign has done this kind of SME research to make sure the electronic signatures are legally binding, or is this m…

DocuSign itself just refers you to your own counsel for legal advice, but does publish and update a handy multi-country legal reference. For the US one, at least, they give examples of where electronic signatures are pretty common and straightforward, and where you need to be careful. Software-wise, they have features to help you show evidence of who signed, where, and when in multiple ways. Nothing magical, though.…

We also generate a completion certificate that has the time & ip addresses of everyone who accessed and modified a doc during the entire signing process, plus we are open source which means more transparent. We plan to publish a lot of content in that space but with limited resources currently we plan to build the product features first. Also, we are soon going to start our fund raise efforts which will ultimately speed up things.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#12

Post by alexopensource »

baz00 wrote: post #8

This is naïve. DocuSign's main sell from a commercial perspective is it separates the parties into the signer, the signee and the authority. If the authority is the signee or the signer then it could be considered unfair. And really no one wants to end up having to hire lawyers to unfuck that mess. Not only that DocuSign does ID verification if you pay them which is required for a bunch of contract types. This does d…

We are working on all these features, even an optional webcam capture during signing. This is just the beginning. Even with current features we are arguably the most complete solution in this space in open-source world.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#13

Post by petertodd »

> For comprehensive guidelines on how to use OpenSign, please consult our User Manual.

FYI, USAGE.md seems to be missing.

Also, a suggestion: while I agree with other posters that this isn't a replacement for the third-party trust model DocuSign provides, you might as well use my OpenTimestamps project to timestamp the documents OpenSign produces. Being able to prove that a document was in fact created in the past, before a dispute existed about the document, is significantly better than not being able to prove that. OpenTimestamps is free and open source, using Bitcoin so that you don't have a trusted third party. Timestamps made with OpenTimestamps are free, as merkle trees are used to allow the whole world's documents to be timestamped with a single Bitcoin transaction.

https://opentimestamps.org/

A good example of how it's been used recently is by the official election authority in Guatemala to timestamp polling documents in their recent presidential election: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0nnM5_Z90E

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#14

Post by alexopensource »

petertodd wrote: post #13

> For comprehensive guidelines on how to use OpenSign, please consult our User Manual. FYI, USAGE.md seems to be missing. Also, a suggestion: while I agree with other posters that this isn't a replacement for the third-party trust model DocuSign provides, you might as well use my OpenTimestamps project to timestamp the documents OpenSign produces. Being able to prove that a document was in fact created in the past, b…

Thanks for the suggestion. We will definitely consider this. We have just released v1 48hrs before. We are working hard to put together a usage guide with docusaurus. You will see huge updates to documentation soon.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#15

Post by petertodd »

alexopensource wrote: post #5
yodon wrote: post #2

My understanding (possibly incorrect) is that competing with DocuSign is hard because of the need to follow obscure state and National laws (many of which are defined by case law rather than published law) in order for the signatures to be legally binding. Is that the case? And if so, is there evidence OpenSign has done this kind of SME research to make sure the electronic signatures are legally binding, or is this m…

Thanks for asking the right question. We are taking legal help to be compliant with various jurisdictions. Our solution is currently able to safely sign a document with a digital signature that will make it tamper-proof and show a geen tick in Adobe PDF while keeping track of incremental annotations added by multiple signers. We envision to add support for eIDAS and AADHAAR e-sign(widely accepted in India) very soon.

> Our solution is currently able to safely sign a document with a digital signature that will make it tamper-proof

Who holds the secret key that actually signs the document? If this is in fact a self-hosted, open-source, project then clearly the user does, and they could sign a different, tampered, version of the document after the fact. I would hesitate to use the term "tamper-proof" in that situation. Right now your documentation doesn't make it clear how this actually works.

I'll also point out, that even if you were using my OpenTimestamps scheme or some other secure timestamping system, I would still hesitate to call the solution "tamper-proof". The problem is that even with timestamps someone can in many situations pre-generate alternate versions of a document in advance. Calling this type of system "tamper-resistant" is better IMO.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#17

Post by baz00 »

alexopensource wrote: post #12
baz00 wrote: post #8

This is naïve. DocuSign's main sell from a commercial perspective is it separates the parties into the signer, the signee and the authority. If the authority is the signee or the signer then it could be considered unfair. And really no one wants to end up having to hire lawyers to unfuck that mess. Not only that DocuSign does ID verification if you pay them which is required for a bunch of contract types. This does d…

We are working on all these features, even an optional webcam capture during signing. This is just the beginning. Even with current features we are arguably the most complete solution in this space in open-source world.

I appreciate what you're doing but we buy DocuSign so the problem is far far away from us. This turns it into a problem we have to manage ourselves or a problem of finding a vendor stable enough to host your stuff that will make it not our problem long enough for the longest contract retention to expire. Which is difficult.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#18

Post by candiddevmike »

yodon wrote: post #2

My understanding (possibly incorrect) is that competing with DocuSign is hard because of the need to follow obscure state and National laws (many of which are defined by case law rather than published law) in order for the signatures to be legally binding. Is that the case? And if so, is there evidence OpenSign has done this kind of SME research to make sure the electronic signatures are legally binding, or is this m…

AFAIK DocuSign acts as a trusted third party and protects/prove chain of custody. Think of them like a digital notary public.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#19

Post by alexopensource »

Animats wrote: post #16

If you get something to sign, can you modify it and send it back to the other party so they can sign the modified version? Or is this a "take it or leave it" system?

Its really important to preserve the integrity of the document during the signing process because of which modifications other than annotations are currently not allowed. We are building this to support an open architecture(micro frontend based add-ons). The two add-ons currently under development are - - A document organizer for signed/in-progress documents as we believe organizing legal documents is very different from organizing regular files as the user should be able to visually identify the status of the document and just hover on a document to see the current status of signers, etc. - An AI based assistant that will allow you to get any clause of a contract re-worded, explained, analysed for risks, etc.(we dont intend to replace lawyers here) Once we have these plugins ready. You will be able to create/modify docs before signing.

Re: Show HN: OpenSign – Open source alternative to DocuSign

#20

Post by alexopensource »

candiddevmike wrote: post #18
yodon wrote: post #2

My understanding (possibly incorrect) is that competing with DocuSign is hard because of the need to follow obscure state and National laws (many of which are defined by case law rather than published law) in order for the signatures to be legally binding. Is that the case? And if so, is there evidence OpenSign has done this kind of SME research to make sure the electronic signatures are legally binding, or is this m…

AFAIK DocuSign acts as a trusted third party and protects/prove chain of custody. Think of them like a digital notary public.

Our understanding is that DocuSign does not have any legal authority, they prove the chain of custody/modifications using digital traces which our solution can also do, arguably in a more open way.
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