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

[Nick Yeates]

From http://www.redhat.com/f/pdf/corp/RH-3573_284204_TM_Gd.pdf
> At the same time, the combined body of work that constitutes Red Hat®
> Enterprise Linux® is a collective work which has been organized by Red
> Hat, and Red Hat holds the copyright in that collective work.

Bradley Kuhn wrote at 15:46 on Monday:
> … It's admittedly a strange behavior,
> and I've been asking Red Hat Legal for many years now to explain better
> why they're doing this and what they believe it's accomplishing.

Larry Rosen wrote at 23:28 on Thursday:
> I often recommend that licensing method to those of my clients who combine
> various FOSS works into a single software package. It isn't odd at all. Even
> if GPL applies to one or more of those internal components, there is no need
> to license the entire collective work under the GPL. We've even distributed
> GPL software as part of collective works under the OSL. 

I too am curious what this "compilation license"ing is and what its benefits are. Mr Kuhn asked, and Larry responded saying basically 'its not so odd - I use it often' and Larry did not state *why* he advises use of this licensing strategy from a business, social or other standpoint.

1) Why larry?
2) What is the "standard" way of doing this? How do most other org's license many works together?

Full disclosure: I work for Red Hat, though am writing this from my personal account and perspective. I am a beginner on my knowledge into OSS license details, so please realize that I am attempting to learn. I could go and ask around in my company about this, yet I would rather engage with the community on this for now.

-Nick Yeates