In receiving the copy, the user has been given a limited amount
of copyright as well. They have the right to distribute further copies, with or
without modifications of their own.
While true, it's also true that
does not come from the interim party except via any code changes said party may
have made. That comes direct from the Copyright Holder.
That gives
them (conceivably) standing to sue for required parts that were omitted in the
original distribution
For code that comes from the interim party, I
would agree. It makes sense they could sue for breach of license if the interim
party attached the GPL license to said parties code and then did not provide the
source. But it does not make sense they could sue on Copyright
grounds.
For code that comes from others, I'd say:
They have an
explicit license direct from the copyright holder as the GPL makes quite
clear.
As a result, what implied license could they have with the interim
party if said interim party never changed any code? I say implied, because my
reading of the GPL does not show any kind of obligation between the interim
party and the end-user recipient.
The obligation is between the interim
party and the copyright owner.
An end-user could certainly demand the
source code from the interim party - anyone can demand anything. But whether
there is Legal obligation between the interim party and the end-user is a
totally different question which I have not seen answered in a clear meaningful
way.
The bottom line is: If there is no clear meaningful way for the
end-user to hold the interim party accountable - then all concern over lawsuits
that may arise from an end-user to target the interim party is (to put bluntly)
FUD.
Perhaps if Canonical is truly concerned with end-users raising valid
lawsuits - they can clearly outline on what gounds they believe such lawsuits
can be raised.
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