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

[Lawrence Rosen]

> Is making the output of a program publicly available 
> "external deployment"?

In OSL, no.

> Is making a program available for remote execution "external 
> deployment"?

In OSL, yes.

Or at least that's what I intended. Do you also read section 5 that way?
(See www.rosenlaw.com/DRAFT-OSL3.0.pdf.)

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, technology law offices (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242  *  fax: 707-485-1243
Author of "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and 
   Intellectual Property Law" (Prentice Hall 2004) 
   [Available also at www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm]
 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:chuck at codefab.com] 
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 10:50 AM
> To: Ernest Prabhakar
> Cc: lrosen at rosenlaw.com; 'Alex Bligh'; 'Chris Zumbrunn'; 
> license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: OVPL & "Otherwise Make Available" (was RE: 
> Change ot topic,back to OVPL)
> 
> 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