GPL FAQ 3879

It mere aggregation does not mean that the two works are separate. It also means that there is no relation between them. That is hardly true here. The one-- the third party's work is used in a critical manner by the other party. That means that the copyright of that work applies to the "aggregation" as work. Ie, you must decide whether or not the aggregation is itself a work under copyright law or not. The fact that the two create, when compiled a single work would I suspect result in the courts deciding that the the source combination was itself a work which attracted copyright, a work therefor under the GPL which must itself be licensed under GPL which is in conflict with the other part of the work, the third party software which does not allow itself to be included as part of a GPL work.

Ie, the fact that two things are shipped in the same container would create the presumption that there is a relationship between them, which would destroy the "mere aggregation" argument. "mere" is quite a strong and restrictive word. It says that the aggregation has to meet some fairly strong criteria for it to be called "mere".

That is as I argue above, unclear at best. And I would suspect that any court of law would regard it as being more than "mere aggregation". Now you could always ask the original writer if he would object to your including his program in such a form, with a disclaimer in large letters saying that that tar file could NOT be copied by anyone else without the permission of the copyright holder. If he said no, then he would be perfectly enbreastled to do so.