[ILUG] SUSE Linux 9.3 Professional Edition licensing survey results

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Conry (michael.conry at gmail.com):

> Not necessarily redistributable at all.  SuSE/Novell's compilation
> copyrighted work isn't under a GPL or similar licence (as far as I
> know).  If you create a derivative version by, for example, deleting
> these rpms, then even the limited permissions SuSE give for
> redistribution of their disks will not necessarily apply to the
> derived work.

A brief review of the term "compilation copyright":

If I publish a collection of other people's work, and _if_ my job of 
selecting and arranging those works is sufficiently creative that it'd 
convince a judge that it's a substantively creative thing in itself,
then I automatically gain copyright title to the selection/arrangement.

LICENSE.TXT on CD#1 does indeed seem to assert such a copyright, and
then asserts that recipients automatically consent to a licence -- which 
is included:  Redistribution is permitted to all outside parties
provided you receive no consideration and don't bundle the thing with
any other product or service.

So, the selection/arrangement of packages _is_ licensed with the right
of redistribution.  (And yes, merely deleting a few packages from the
list would probably not escape the compilation copyright encumbrance -- 
if such a property would be ruled to exist at all.)