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Good to see the follow up on this. And for what it's worth, I think Terence has handled this well and is being overly harsh on himself. The original comment w

Good to see the follow up on this. And for what it's worth, I think Terence has handled this well and is being overly harsh on himself. The original comment was just a throwaway aside and not even an accusation. I don't think he should hold himself responsible for how others took the comment & inflated it. As the owner of a BMW, he's entitled to ask BMW for a copy of the LGPL source used. Job well done.

voltagex_ 11y ago
Do BMW have any obligation to provide it in any kind of buildable state? This looks like half a buildroot tree, but the build scripts are missing.
- rlpb 11y ago
  "The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." For example, perhaps they have no build scripts, and do it by hand every time. If BMW developers do it this way, then that's fine by the wording of the GPL. It wouldn't be reasonable to require them to provide anything further than what they already do.
  - bkuhn 11y ago
    Scripts doesn't necessarily mean software scripts; it could be a script as in a script for a play. If the BMW engineers memorized their lines and know how to do them, they have to write out those lines as a requirement of the GPL. The GPL requires "oral tradition" build scripts to be passed along as well.
- jordigh 11y ago
  Do BMW have any obligation to provide it in any kind of buildable state? Yes. GPLv2, section 3: For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.
jordigh 11y ago
I wish people stopped trying to tip-toe around the poor, hurt feelings of BMW. BMW is a big company and can afford to have properly trained customer reps that know how to point to the source code. We're the little guy here trying to figure out how our cars work; BMW is the giant just meeting their bare minimum requirements.
- slagfart 11y ago
  BMW doesn't actually have any feelings - it's a corporation, and it doesn't care how much some hacker is upset when a twitter rep doesn't know what open source is. The only people who care about software licences are people who write software. Deal with it.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    > The only people who care about software licences are people who write software. This is not true in any way - people who use and sell software, such as BMW, spend a lot of time, money, and lawyers on licensing issues. Corporations care about anything that affects their bottom line, and a distinguished hacker who raises a small ruckus could ultimately build into disaster. It's simply responsible to have your front line know who to refer people to when they ask if you're in compliance with the law.
- foota 11y ago
  Frankly I really disagree, to ask BMW to train all it's service reps to provide source code when only a _very_ small portion of the population will be asking for it is a bit ridiculous. Now, I can maybe see some sort of training where they basically tell them to redirect someone to a special rep.
edent 11y ago
Thank you for your kind words - most appreciated.
lolidaisuki 11y ago
He doesn't have to own a BMW to ask for the source as the binaries are freely available for anyone to download. All he needs to do is to download them and he is eligible for the license.

voltagex_ 11y ago

Do BMW have any obligation to provide it in any kind of buildable state? This looks like half a buildroot tree, but the build scripts are missing.

rlpb 11y ago
"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it." For example, perhaps they have no build scripts, and do it by hand every time. If BMW developers do it this way, then that's fine by the wording of the GPL. It wouldn't be reasonable to require them to provide anything further than what they already do.
- bkuhn 11y ago
  Scripts doesn't necessarily mean software scripts; it could be a script as in a script for a play. If the BMW engineers memorized their lines and know how to do them, they have to write out those lines as a requirement of the GPL. The GPL requires "oral tradition" build scripts to be passed along as well.
jordigh 11y ago
Do BMW have any obligation to provide it in any kind of buildable state? Yes. GPLv2, section 3: For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.

jordigh 11y ago

I wish people stopped trying to tip-toe around the poor, hurt feelings of BMW. BMW is a big company and can afford to have properly trained customer reps that know how to point to the source code. We're the little guy here trying to figure out how our cars work; BMW is the giant just meeting their bare minimum requirements.

slagfart 11y ago
BMW doesn't actually have any feelings - it's a corporation, and it doesn't care how much some hacker is upset when a twitter rep doesn't know what open source is. The only people who care about software licences are people who write software. Deal with it.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  > The only people who care about software licences are people who write software. This is not true in any way - people who use and sell software, such as BMW, spend a lot of time, money, and lawyers on licensing issues. Corporations care about anything that affects their bottom line, and a distinguished hacker who raises a small ruckus could ultimately build into disaster. It's simply responsible to have your front line know who to refer people to when they ask if you're in compliance with the law.
foota 11y ago
Frankly I really disagree, to ask BMW to train all it's service reps to provide source code when only a _very_ small portion of the population will be asking for it is a bit ridiculous. Now, I can maybe see some sort of training where they basically tell them to redirect someone to a special rep.

edent 11y ago

Thank you for your kind words - most appreciated.

lolidaisuki 11y ago

He doesn't have to own a BMW to ask for the source as the binaries are freely available for anyone to download. All he needs to do is to download them and he is eligible for the license.