Quoting Andrew McGlashan (andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au):
The email is attached fwiw
If indeed BMW Australia are the licensor, they are, as stated, not bound by the licensing terms. The licensing terms are offered to recipients of code instances that were conditioned by that licence. GPLv2 (and similar licences) extend the offer of some rights that otherwise would be reserved to the copyright holder ('reserved rights') to anyone who agrees with those conditions. Others (those who decline to so agree) enjoy only default rights conveyed. Here is an example: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/muas.html As stated at the bottom, that is a work over which I hold copyright title. I add that the rights to redistribute and/or modify the page contents are available to any recipients who comply with GPLv2 concerning the work. Let's say you do: $ wget http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/muas.html $ wget http://linuxmafia.com/redrick.css Right, you now have local copies of my two files. Because I put them up for public access, you have an implied license to do everything one normally does with a Web page (and to make private copies, etc., all the things that _aren't_ reserved rights). Beyond that, you have two lawful options: You may comply with the requirements of GPLv2 concerning what you just fetched, or you may decline to do so. Either choice is totally lawful. The first permits you to restribute the orignals and make/distribute derivatives, the second doesn't. A recipient exercising those reserved rights _without_ complying with GPLv2 terms risks being sued for violating my copyright. _But_, by contrast, I as copyright holder may do anything I want with the (my) work, because I didn't need to agree to any terms to get access to (my) reserved rights: Those rights were mine already. My deciding to give nothing to recipients beyond what they already have breaks nobody's legal rights. Mind you, it is certainly perverse to issue a work to the public, claiming it's under a copyleft licence, but withholding access to its preferred form. The result is a work that is not open source (for lack of source), even though it's asserted to be under an open source licence. One suspects this was a matter of miscommunication, either within BMW Australia or between them and one of their suppliers. This happens rather more often than many people realise.