BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License
To me this doesn&#x27;t really look like a clear cut case. Does he own one of these cars? If not, then I think it is very dubious whether he has any standing to request the source code. If he <i>does</i> then included with the car should be an offer for how to access the GPL source code. He should have followed that (or clearly stated that he could not locate it in his email). The requirement for him to enter the VIN to access the source code does not seem unreasonable since they are only required to distribute source code to customers, and he has simply emailed them out of the blue asking them to give him the source without any proof that he&#x27;s a customer. The statement about BMW being the &quot;sole owner&quot; is probably concerning proprietary parts of the software that may not be subject to GPL at all. It is probably way beyond the skills of some random customer service rep to distinguish the subtleties of those kind of things.<p>This kind of interaction actually looks to me to be <i>counter</i> to the spirit under which the Free Software Foundation tries to administer the GPL - which is that they work cooperatively to help companies comply rather than try to trick them into legal hot water. I agree with the FSF approach and I don&#x27;t think this sort of PR ambush type tactic is helpful in promoting the use of free software.