OVPL & "Otherwise Make Available" (was RE: Change ot topic,back to OVPL)

[Chuck Swiger]

Ernest Prabhakar wrote:
> On Aug 26, 2005, at 7:32 AM, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
>>>> If I relay my mail through an OVPL licensed SMTP server, does that
>>>> mean the software was "Otherwise Made Available" to me?
[ ... ]
>> Nope. External deployment occurs in the OSL when the software is  
>> "used by anyone other than You," not when it merely delivers email to those  
>> people.
> 
> I wonder if the term "external deployment" is a much clearer synonym  
> for "distribution" that might help resolve this ambiguity.

Is making the output of a program publicly available "external deployment"?
Is making a program available for remote execution "external deployment"?

I would not expect free software to claim ownership or impose obligations onto 
the output of a program, unless such output includes significant distinctive 
content from the software itself.  And even if it does, software such as GCC 
and flex/bison explicitly disclaim that the GPL would apply to the output of 
the compiler toolchain, even if the program includes the flex skeleton or 
certain low-level GCC code interfaces (floating point math ops, libiberty.a?).

However, if I "telnet mail.example.com smtp" and send a message directly by 
hand, I am running and using the SMTP software.  The classic network 
architecture would have had a specific sendmail process dedicated just to me, 
which was invoked from inetd to service my specific connection, and which would 
go away after I am done and close the connection.

The organization which operates that mail server has not redistributed either 
the source or the binary of their SMTP server to me, I am simply running it 
remotely and interacting with the output it generates.

-- 
-Chuck