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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

#111

Post by KronisLV »

johnchristopher wrote: post #104

> You will need to create an AWS S3 bucket or digital ocean space in order to store your uploaded documents The org I work for would love to self-host on-premise a digital signing solution so they definitely won't use external dependencies like AWS. Theoretically they could swap with minio but last time we used it it was not a drop-in replacement yet.

> Theoretically they could swap with minio but last time we used it it was not a drop-in replacement yet.

Depends on whether AGPLv3 works for you or not (or whether you decide to pay them), I guess: https://min.io/pricing

I've actually been looking for more open alternatives, but haven't found much.

Zenko CloudServer seemed to be somewhat promising, but doesn't seem to be managed very actively: https://github.com/scality/cloudserver/issues/4986 (their Docker images on DockerHub were last updated 10 months ago, which is what the homepage links to; blog doesn't seem active since 2019, forums don't have much going on, despite some action on GitHub still)

There was also Garage, but that one is also AGPLv3: https://garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr/

The closest I got was discovering that SeaweedFS has an S3 compatible mode: https://github.com/seaweedfs/seaweedfs

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

#112

Post by dlandau »

graemep wrote: post #110
thathndude wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyer here. Not legal advice. Really not that much by way of law to consider. If everyone agrees that an E-signature is good, then, generally speaking, an e-signature is good. I’d suggest it’s more on the people actually drafting the documents being signed than the software layer facilitating.

Not a lawyer, but I know the position in the UK is pretty simple and much the same. The purpose of someone like Docusign is to provide a trusted third party to provide evidence. For most purposes GPG signed email (or anything else with a similar signature) would work perfectly well provided you could prove who the keys belong to. In fact it would be better than DOcusign who can (from the few documents I have signed)…

For most purposes a normal email with no signatures is fine too.

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

#113

Post by kurthr »

robertlagrant wrote: post #70
kurthr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, and this isn't something I'm dramatically invested in, but... Rent seeking would be designing a product for collecting rent (not a one time payment) for a product (e.g. SaS) that doesn't wear out or has separate maintenance costs. Like a house that is rented the value comes from the income stream and it likely is adjusted by something like inflation. Not renting would be selling a product for a one time f…

Rent seeking is trying to create a legal/regulatory structure that means you can farm people. E.g. coming to the UK from some countries you need to prove you can speak English. Assuming you can, and you need a waiver on the test, there is a sole organisation you can pay hundreds of pounds to to send them your degree certificate, and for them to say in some government UI "yes, this probably means they can speak Englis…

Regulatory lock-in is certainly one method of guaranteeing rent. I'd argue copyrights and patents are as well. Microsoft and Google get accused of rent seeking because of their near monopolies, but I don't think most of their income is particularly based on regulation. You find other forms of lock-in can come from network effects in social media (Facebook), or B2B lock-in due to outsourcing of basic business operations (IBM, Oracle, Salesforce).

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

#114

Post by kurthr »

nonethewiser wrote: post #65
kurthr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, and this isn't something I'm dramatically invested in, but... Rent seeking would be designing a product for collecting rent (not a one time payment) for a product (e.g. SaS) that doesn't wear out or has separate maintenance costs. Like a house that is rented the value comes from the income stream and it likely is adjusted by something like inflation. Not renting would be selling a product for a one time f…

You mean a SAS? The monthly payment goes towards support, maintenance, and further development. Or you could rebuy essentially the same thing every couple years.

I meant a SaaS, but mistyped it.

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

#115

Post by johnfonesca »

alexopensource wrote: post #43
petertodd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 you…

In the hosted version, we sign the document on behalf of the user using our own private key. Our roadmap also has the feature to bring your own cert(not relevant here). As soon as a user signs a document, a copy of the signed document is instantly sent to all the parties involved. This ensures that the signer cannot revoke the documents already signed. If the receiving party tries to modify the document, the signatur…

>This ensures that the signer cannot revoke the documents already signed. If the receiving party tries to modify the document, the signature becomes invalid

This,fortunately, is a feature of the PDF digital signatures standard.

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

#116

Post by mgrandl »

KronisLV wrote: post #111
johnchristopher wrote: post #104

> You will need to create an AWS S3 bucket or digital ocean space in order to store your uploaded documents The org I work for would love to self-host on-premise a digital signing solution so they definitely won't use external dependencies like AWS. Theoretically they could swap with minio but last time we used it it was not a drop-in replacement yet.

> Theoretically they could swap with minio but last time we used it it was not a drop-in replacement yet. Depends on whether AGPLv3 works for you or not (or whether you decide to pay them), I guess: https://min.io/pricing I've actually been looking for more open alternatives, but haven't found much. Zenko CloudServer seemed to be somewhat promising, but doesn't seem to be managed very actively: https://github.com/sca…

Ceph is definitely the biggest open-source option.

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

#118

Post by dataviz1000 »

Projectiboga wrote: post #76
kemitchell wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't researched the law here in a while, but my general impression the last time I did was that there isn't much in the way of legal requirements for signing things digitally beyond the federal ESIGN Act, general principles of state contract law, and the smattering of very particular kinds of transactions that require processes like notarization or recording. For everyday deals between the vast majority of peopl…

Supreme Court said you can agree to things online awhile ago.

Click wrap is binding.

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

#119

Post by grst »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #102

I wish there was a free alternative to the German/Europe QES ("Qualified Signature"). The cheapest currently is about 20 EUR/ Month and allows you to make 3 Signatures. Others ask for 50 EUR for each QES. I hate to pay for my own Signature! We need something like Let's Encrypt for signatures.

Other EU countries offer this for free, e.g. https://www.a-trust.at/pdfsign

What's even worse is that in Germany most companies and authorities refuse to accept those digitally signed PDFs.

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

#120

Post by otteromkram »

vitus wrote: post #95
jacurtis wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in the American legal system is that straightforward and simple, even less so among our Supreme Court. Things got even more confusing now that this year the Supreme Court has set a new precedent that they can now overturn their own rulings from decades earlier. While I think that’s generally true that online signatures are acceptable in most circumstances, I’d be careful to blindly believe it as a blanket sta…

> this year the Supreme Court has set a new precedent that they can now overturn their own rulings from decades earlier What happened this year specifically? Dobbs was in June 2022, but that isn't even close to the first time that the Supreme Court overturned precedent from 50+ years prior -- Brown v Board largely overturned Plessy v Ferguson ("separate but equal") from nearly 60 years prior. And, we've had plenty of…

Roe v. Wade
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