Daimler AG, the producer of Mercedes Benz cars, uses Free and Open Source software within several of its products.
When you buy this new car you can find the CD-ROM below inside the user manual.
Daimler AG is a member of the “Automotive Grade Linux” (AGL) initiative initiated by the Linux Foundation.
Every Linux developer may be very courious about the content of the CD-ROM.
Probably you could expect a sort of link to a Linux kernel somewhere and a few other Open Source components, and that could be a good opportunity to study and understand how well the GPL license is respected.
Unfortunately you will discover that the content of the CDROM is a mere list of the various licenses of the software provided into the car.
Moreover in the CD Mercedes is not providing a written offer to receive the code nor an email to ask them as many other devices I’ve seen so far like network devices.
Even following the only link provided into the CDROM is not possible to get any soure code.
For example, following this link you can enter the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is a 17-character globally unique number, and you expect to be able to find any kind of source code:
No, that’s not the case. You can simply download (again) the PDF file listing the various licenses description only.
A this point I wonder how one can get the GPL (and other) Open Source source code.