External deployment / Otherwise Make Available (was Re: OVPL summary)

[Alex Bligh]

Michael,

> I'm skipping the other branch of this thread, since the point you missed
> (or ignored) is easier to re-express here.
>
> I am not concerned about scenarios involving human intermediaries (that
> form of indirect use is pretty clearly not at issue), but software ones.

I didn't ignore it - I was responding to someone else (someone off list)
who made the same point as was made here a while ago.

> Assume, for your burger-ordering scenario, a public website with it's
> own UI and functionality that interfaces (when an order is complete)
> with the OVPL-licensed ordering system for the purpose of getting orders
> to the employees. The customer is transitively 'using' the OVPL ordering
> system, so should this be construed as 'making otherwise available'? As
> I noted in my other message, this is a very, very fuzzy boundary, and
> therein lies the difficulty.

Yes. I agree. My point is it's the same situation as the OSL (as my
definition is pretty much the same). Andrew thinks having it defined makes
it clearer. I agree, but I don't think it necessarily makes it that clearer.

In the instance above, if there is an employee "in the way" I don't think
there is "use" (as would be construed in an IP sense) by a non-employee.
In much the same way you aren't using a plane if you by some raspberries
that happened to have been shipped by air. If we were talking an ASP
burger ordering system (where they backend the OVPL software burger
management system into Apache, say), that gets a lot closer.

Alex