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by zhuzhuor 4469 days ago
Maybe more background to add to the story:

Originally, the source code of Waze clients was released under GPL, which AFAIR it was as branded as a part of the community-based map app.

But the company chose to not release the source code after v3.0. This is quoted from one of my emails.

    In reply to your inquiry "Hi, where can we get the latest waze code?":
    
    Thank you for your feedback.
    
    You can find source code for the old versions (up to 2.4) on our wiki - waze.com/wiki
    
    Version 3.0 and higher are no longer under GPL, and at the moment we are still considering if and how we will share the code for these versions.
    
    Best regards,
I guess Waze either 1) has obtained the agreements of all open-source contributors, or 2) has completely rewritten all related source code.
1 comments
greenyoda 4469 days ago
They're apparently being sued over the crowdsourced map content, not the code. The article says:

"The claimant in the lawsuit is Roy Gorodish, an Israeli accountant who participated in Freemap Israel, an 'open-source' project to map the country using free software called Roadmap 1. Gorodish, represented by attorney Yitzhak Aviram, says in the lawsuit that Waze's maps were built by daily updates by the community, not solely by Waze programmers. ...

Gorodish says that when Freemap started, Shabtai, Shinar and Levine gave community members a document saying that the project was owned by the community. Later, when Waze was founded, the three men unilaterally changed the terms of the agreement in what amounts to intellectual property theft and copyright infringement, he says."

If they violated the GPL on the code, they could face a separate lawsuit from the code's developers.

link