[OSM-dev] Project Proposal - Waze Integration

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Graham Jones wrote:
>    1. For some reason, Waze seem to be producing their own map rather
>       than using OSM as the basis - does anyone know why?  The student
>       says he has contacted Waze and they said it was because of
>       licensing issues - this is a surprise to me, because I think our
>       license is pretty relaxed.  Has anyone been in touch with them
>       about it?  (Please don't turn this into a 'OSM should be PD'
>       dabate!!).

I think that Waze ultimately want to own their own map data, in order to 
be able to license it and/or sell products based on it. That goal is not 
compatible with OSM.

Further to that, it could be argued that if their base map were OSM, 
even their traffic info would be derived from that base map (the machine 
knows that there is slow-moving traffic but in order to turn that into a 
sensible message like "stop-and-go on M25" you need to access the base 
map data). So even if they were not out to create a proprietary map, 
they would be operating in a legal grey area which might well turn away 
the venture capitalists.

Maybe this sums it up:

http://fakestevec.blogspot.com/2009/08/your-choice-baby.html

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"