[License-discuss] Red Hat compilation copyright & RHEL contract

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

John Cowan wrote at 14:56 (EDT) on Monday:
> I don't see where the oddity comes in.  If we grant that the
> compilation which is RHEL required a creative spark in the selection
> (for the arrangement is mechanical), then it is a fit object of
> copyright.

It's odd in that Red Hat is the only entity that I know of to ever
claim this sort of licensing explicitly.  Are there any other examples?

When I think of compilation and arrangement copyright on copylefted
software, I'm usually focused on things like "the maintainer chose which
patches were appropriate and which ones weren't for the release" within
a single package, and not "big software archive, with lots of different
Free Software works under different Free Software licenses".  Again, I'm
*not* saying the latter is an invalid or problematic use of copyleft --
I chose my words carefully: it's odd, as in "beyond or deviating from
the usual or expected". :)
-- 
   -- bkuhn