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In Israel, Class-Action Plaintiff Requests Waze Source Code Under GPL

Posted by timothy on from the just-want-to-take-a-look-around dept.

jonklinger (1166633) writes "A class action lawsuit was brought against Waze (a community-based traffic and navigation app), claiming that their source code and map data were licensed to Waze by the community under the GPL. The plaintiff, Roey Gorodish, requests a copy of the recent source code and map data. This is (as far as I know) the first ever GPL class action suit, too bad it will be quashed by bad facts later as I see it." Google seems to do a credible translation of this source article.

1 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. problems by jbolden · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article linked is really quite good. According to the article are 2 prongs to the suit the code and the data.

    Waze version 2 was GPLv2. Wave version 3 was proprietary. Waze claimed it rewrote the code. Roey Gorodish wants to examine the code to prove there was a violation but Israeli law doesn't allow discovery without some evidence. As an aside I also have question in that as as I know if Waze owns the code they can multilicense it. Roey Gorodish IMHO would have to find his code not just any code.

    There is also the question of map data. Freemap’s data was released both proprietary and GPL and then only proprietary. I'm not sure what the basis of the claim is.