On 4 March 2016 at 14:41, Brian May via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Geoff D'Arcy via luv-talk <luv-talk@luv.asn.au> writes:
BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License
"Part of the usage rights agreement states that the software is protected by copyright and BMW is the sole owner. So in this case it is not subject to the requirements of a "Public" licence."
If this was true, then while it might be weird licensing their own proprietary code as GPL, and then only distributing binaries, it is perfectly ok for them to do so.
However I get the impression that BMW is not the "sole owner", and as such this makes the statement not true.
Just because you have have a "usage rights agreement" doesn't suddenly mean you own the copyright to everything.
Or is it a case of BMW compiling binaries using private modifications that are instlled into the cars for use but not actually distributing the software, if the usage within their cars is not counted as distribution. Of course, IANAL. -- Colin Fee tfeccles@gmail.com