Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 200 posts

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#131

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

o1y32 wrote: post #70

Signing documents online is not a technical problem but a business and legal problem. DocuSign and other commercial companies have a business not necessarily because they have any unique technology or the best user experience (they often do), but because they handle all the complex stuff around signing documents. A reality many people don't see is that many commercial companies really have the expertise in certain ar…

> I for one don't see myself using any of such tools unless they are actually reliable, competitive and trusted by many corporations and individuals.

People said the same in 1999 for online banking.

"According to research by Online Banking Report, at the end of 1999 less than 0.4% of households in the U.S. were using online banking. At the beginning of 2004, some 33 million U.S. households (31%) were using some form of online banking. Five years later, 47% of Americans used online banking, according to a survey by Gartner Group"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_banking#Internet_and_cu...

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#132

Post by gamblor956 »

_jal wrote: post #93
jazzyjackson wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What justification do the e-signature SaaS companies have for their exorbitant prices? They will defend their digital signature in court. I was shocked to find these "click here to sign" contracts manage to do it all without an ounce of cryptography, but the fact is lawyers don't need cold hard math, they need a warm body to be a subject matter expert to explain to a jury that unless you're claiming someone else ha…

Like anything, but especially in law, the devil is in the details. Docusign has been rejected by a court before - https://www.cryptomathic.com/news-events/blog/us-court-rejec... That was fact-specific and doesn't call Docusign invalid, but it does demonstrate why simply "using Docusign" might not save you in a dispute.

Not really applicable, in that situation there were local court rules requiring physical documents and "wet" signatures (i.e., signed in person with a pen). The UST specifically noted that absent those rules DocuSign would have been acceptable.

Also...the article is from 7 years ago...

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#133

Post by somery »

29athrowaway wrote: post #113
somery wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The E-Sign Act grandfathered in existing agreements that existed digitally prior to Oct. 1, 2000. All agreements after this date, however, must comply with the following set of guidelines in the E-Sign Act to be considered legally binding: - Intent to sign. Electronic signatures are only valid if the involved parties have the intention to sign. Signature requests can be declined. - Consent to do business electronical…

And how do you achieve this with this? How secure is it? How confidential are the records? How does it guarantee integrity?

When self-hosting it - it's up for the company that is using the tool hosted on-premises to ensure that all their specific requirements are met - i think DocuSeal provides enough features to make this happen.

AWS S3 to store documents can be integrated with DocuSeal to ensure the documents integrity - AWS services have their own logs that can't be altered and so can be used as a source of trust.

And to ensure that the document was signed by a real person companies can include photo attachments into the documents signing process (this could be a photo of an ID card or a selfie)

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#134

Post by somery »

gamblor956 wrote: post #128
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…

can be self-hosted on-premises This kills it as a viable alternative to DocuSign. The point of Docusign is that it is an independent third party that maintains custody of the signed contract and proof of acceptance (i.e., digital signatures) by all parties to the contract. A self-hosted digital signature system isn't worth anything in court; the other parties will simply reject the authenticity of any data held withi…

>A self-hosted digital signature system isn't worth anything in court; the other parties will simply reject the authenticity of any data held within it and the amount you'd have to spend to get that data into evidence would probably pay for several centuries of DocuSign's enterprise edition.

When self-hosting it - you can integrate it with AWS s3 Azure or Google Cloud files storage - those are the trustworthy third parties that provide the entire history of logs to ensure that the documents were not altered and signed at specific date/time with the specific content.

So bringing cloud storage providers as a thirdparty when self-hosting will bring enough evidences to the court to defend the signed documents.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#135

Post by magundu »

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…

I had same feeling when I build a free tools to unlock the password protected pdf. It can be easily done with OSX Preview. Then I see that people who don’t have technical knowledge and tools, they can easily unlock pdf from browser itself.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#136

Post by cyberax »

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…

> Looking for some feedback and would be happy to answer any questions

It would be great if you could add support for AWS QLDB. It's an immutable blockchain database (basically, "git with an SQL interface"), and you can periodically "stamp" it by notarizing its hash with one of the public blockchains.

This way you can guarantee that the records are going to be immutable and unalterable.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#137

Post by bestham »

dtx1 wrote: post #64
rkagerer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in reading more about #2, can you provide a source? https://www.docusign.com/products/electronic-signature/legal... doesn't mention anything about videos or passports. I could see how that might be one means a third party has chosen to collect proof of intent, but haven't found anything legally mandating it.

This may be german law specific, the overarching EU Legislation can be found by googlign "qualified electronic signature". In general they require complete, verified cryptographic signatures via smartcards or similar but because no one uses it, videoident has become the defacto alternative in germany

Most physical bearers (smart card or similar) of a Qualified Certificate are issued in person or based on a known identity. Here there is no need for remote identification before the issuance of the certificate.

What you are talking about is a “remote signature service”. Such a service will often onboard a user remotely using a physical ID, video and liveliness checks and give them the credentials to produce advanced or qualified electronic signatures with the service in question. These credentials have to meet LoA Substantial or High for a QTSP to be able to issue a QC to a user. Most remote signature services use very short lived certificates (10-15 minutes) that are created for every signature the user produces. (As opposed to the long lived certificates of several years for a physical card).

Germany have to follow the eIDAS-regulation as a member state of the EU/EAA. But what level of signature is needed for what transactions is not regulated in the eIDAS.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#138

Post by _jal »

gamblor956 wrote: post #132
_jal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like anything, but especially in law, the devil is in the details. Docusign has been rejected by a court before - https://www.cryptomathic.com/news-events/blog/us-court-rejec... That was fact-specific and doesn't call Docusign invalid, but it does demonstrate why simply "using Docusign" might not save you in a dispute.

Not really applicable, in that situation there were local court rules requiring physical documents and "wet" signatures (i.e., signed in person with a pen). The UST specifically noted that absent those rules DocuSign would have been acceptable. Also...the article is from 7 years ago...

Of course it is applicable. The Docusign users failed to use it in a way that would be legally valid.

If you have a more recent case that seems relevant or invalidates that result, post it. Otherwise I'm not sure what being 7 years old has to do with anything.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#139

Post by capableweb »

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…

> - File storage on AWS S3, Google Storage, or Azure

I'm guessing it's just a mistake/miss in this comment, but for file storage it is also possible to store it locally on the server right? Otherwise all "editions" are "in the Cloud" yes or yes, so would kind of defeat the purpose of the self-hosted version.

Re: Docuseal: Open-source DocuSign alternative

#140

Post by FpUser »

gamblor956 wrote: post #125
FpUser wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Eg if you’re a CFO, would you being willing to take the risk just to save a couple of bucks " Typical FUD preached by many online companies to lure customers. Even verbal contracts are enforceable (with the caveats of course). These will be fine for the most boring cases. The others are signed with lawyers anyways.

"take the risk" This is the important part you're ignoring. Yes, verbal contracts between businesses are binding, but only to the extent you can actually prove the terms in a court of law. Using DocuSign (or similar) is about risk mitigation, specifically about being able to prove the the contents of the contract in legal proceedings. The risk with being a business that allows for verbal contracts is that one of your…

You are suddenly switching from Ducusign vs Docuseal to DocuSign vs verbal. That was not point of my reply.
Post reply on HN