Hacker News Reader

Comment by ratboy666 | Hacker News Reader

No, the offer for source must be to anyone -- the supply of a binary may be limited. BMW cannot be the "sole owner" of the copyright -- even if they own the part they wrote, they must still supply source for the GPL parts.

View on HN

"the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users"

Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#GPLRequireSourc...

BMW does not have to provide the sources to everybody. Only to its users.

edit: tzs also has a point. Hm?

I was also under that impression as well, but from that same page you posted:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#WhatDoesWritten...

Which sounds like if you didn't provide the source with the program up front then you're required to give it to anyone that asks since they may have received the program indirectly.

> since they may have received the program indirectly.

Which is rarely possible for a car OS, honestly.

Really? I would consider it to be quite common, given the prevalence of used cars.

Which would be direct, not indirect. You are in possession of the vehicle, with the legal standing of an owner.

People buying used cars is pretty common...

And also direct.

In that case you have the car, and the VIN – and received the software directly.

Please specify a use case where you received the software without the VIN, thanks.

Does the intention behind some GPL clause matter or how some court would interpret the text?

For a court the intention very much matters – in case of doubt, the court will always resort to interpreting the intention.

At least in Germany – and BMW is German.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com