Waze - any guarantees it remains free?

[sokolgeo]

Hello all,

I have a very straightforward question to discuss - are there any guarantees the Waze would remain free for end users forever?

I mean we are proposed to repeat the work of http://www.openstreetmap.org/ - free mapping foundation and we are proposed to do it again, for free and under the license which would give all the rights in the result to the owners of Waze service.

OK, fine. We do all mapping again, for free and give copyright on the result to Waze owners. For me the outcome is plain - people behind Waze would own it all. And this somehow concerns me. People has always been the weakest link in most of the chains I've seen. I case of Wikipedia there are measures taken to keep it free, including Wikimedia foundation and licensing policy. Openstreetmap.org explicitly state they make copyright-free map and support this claim with appropriate license. Do we have such a safety device for Waze? I don't see any!

Some say "Hey, if Waze gets commercialized users would leave!" But I don't think so. You see, if you have had actively participated in mapping your region over prolonged period of time then it might be extremely difficult for you to leave "your child". Mapping and community experience mixed together really might get addictive enough to keep you paying for " affordable premium account", "more frequent traffic updates", "additional map layers with gas stations or other POIs", "members-only chat", etc. It might easily go that far once the community gets developed. And we people would have smaller lever than we now think we would.

Please, fellow wazers - what do you make out of it? Am I having a particular case of paranoia and need to grab my pills fast? Or this is really like it?

[RallyChris]

There are no guarantees about anything.

It's a business. Somehow the servers, and the staff of waze have to get paid for. I guess they could put in the usage agreement, that it will always be free for us users submitting data, but then that limits their options.

If Waze finds out that there is not enough money out there selling the data, then potentially they are put in a position where the only option is to close shop.

I would prefer at least the option to pay for the software if I feel it is worth it versus them just closing the doors.

[sokolgeo]

True, but how is Waze better than openstreetmap.org then?

I mean Waze must be so much better to stimulate people to repeat all the enourmous openstreetmaps.org work - this time under Waze proprietary ownership license. If Waze really wanted to be open then the licensing agreement with openstreetmap.org would be here from day zero. But Waze wants to make money not by adding value on the top of the open map core (with giving map updates back to community) but by replacing the open map core with proprietary copy which is to be created by community volunteers for free and owned by Waze shareholders. And all this without any hard commitment ('bill of rights', you know) towards these mapping volunteers... Hmm... Any more thoughts ?

[RallyChris]

Everything that Waze does that is not street level data - OpenStreets does not provide without some third party data that may have the same potential for not being free now or in the future.

Waze provides Navigation, traffic, user reports, all services added on top of the maps no matter what the source.

Software development cost money. Servers that collect the data and give it back to the users cost money. Networks cost money. Every open source/free project cost money. The cost are just hidden from us end users. It might be just 10 dollars a month to run a webserver, or it could be 14,000 pounds like OpenStreet paid out in 2008 (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation#Financial)

So back to recreating the data. Waze decided to not hitch their business plan to some other systems data. This has the benefit of making it free to us the end users, with however much effort you wish to put into the map data. And makes it so Waze is able to stand or fail on it's own without having an external force dictate the end.

So... you can either use OpenStreets which is supported by a foundation that could close shop if they run out of money.
Or you can use Waze which is a business that could close shop if they run out of money.

[sokolgeo]

The point is what openstreetmap.org would live or die with commitment to the community to remain free and open.

Waze might go as much commercial as they want at any moment - no real commitment tothe user to remain free at all.

Ok, good. I've purchased some other navigation program for $35 for my iPhone. It has very accurate and complete map of my region, real time traffic and several tens of thousand of users in my city who feed the realtime traffic data back to server. It just covers the city and just works here and now.

So see you guys in few years time and good luck to those of you who will spend his time drawing waze maps on such a licensing terms!

Unless there are other points someone sees worth mentioning (welcome!) - good bye and thank you for discussion!

[zzyzxuk]

I'm one of those guys who's spent hundreds of hours building maps, for free.

Here's why:

1.) I like maps.
2.) I like looking at something at saying, "hey, I helped make that."
3.) I believe in crowdsourcing as a concept, and think it's the way forward.
4.) I believe that the economics of the Internet means that old business models that charge end-users for information is outdated, and will not work in the new web economy. Waze gets that.
5.) I believe that in the future, Waze, or something like Waze will be the way that we all get traffic information.
6.) I'd rather it NOT be Google that does it. They're too big. Fej, Dror and the other guys actually answer my e-mails. Google never has.
7.) If this is the future, I think that my job as a citizen of the world is to help usher in that future just a little sooner - as Clinton said in his first inaugural address, "to force the Spring."

That's why I'm willing to do it... I think that Waze is the future. I'm just helping to accelerate it's arrival a little.

[sketch]

The point is what openstreetmap.org would live or die with commitment to the community to remain free and open.

Waze might go as much commercial as they want at any moment - no real commitment tothe user to remain free at all.

Ok, good. I've purchased some other navigation program for $35 for my iPhone. It has very accurate and complete map of my region, real time traffic and several tens of thousand of users in my city who feed the realtime traffic data back to server. It just covers the city and just works here and now.

So see you guys in few years time and good luck to those of you who will spend his time drawing waze maps on such a licensing terms!

Unless there are other points someone sees worth mentioning (welcome!) - good bye and thank you for discussion!

The difference between you and me is that I still have thirty-five dollars in my pocket.

[sokolgeo]

The difference between you and me is that my hour costs more than thirty-five dollars. So there is a clear win financially. I believe there should be some form of emotional satisfaction to keep things going. But with someone owning the results of my contribution, someone without clear policy and commitment - I'm starting to have second thoughts about this.

It is almost starting to resemble "First doze is for free" approach we all have seen too many times already.

[sokolgeo]

I'm one of those guys who's spent hundreds of hours building maps, for free.

Here's why:

1.) I like maps.
2.) I like looking at something at saying, "hey, I helped make that."
3.) I believe in crowdsourcing as a concept, and think it's the way forward.
4.) as a citizen of the world is to help usher in that future just a little sooner - as Clinton said in his first inaugural address, "to force the Spring."

That's why I'm willing to do it... I think that Waze is the future. I'm just helping to accelerate it's arrival a little.

sorry for inaccurate quote - I have tiny screen and do my best on the go.

I'm actually another guy like you. May be not hundreds of hours but tens of hours have been spent.
Now I just think if it was the right place to contribute compared to openstreetmap ?
And basically fellow wazers don't have much on the rational side to support waze contribution. Oh my!

Still good luck to all who contributes! I'll be installing waze from time to time to see how it goes. Thanks everyone! Cheers

[noam]

Hi everyone, this is Noam, CEO of Waze. I think this discussion is important and wanted to weigh in with my answer.

First of all, our service is and will remain free to our community. You guys are our lifeblood and we are committed to helping you build a great service for each others.

We are doing everything we can to help - technology, operations, marketing and trying to bring in more mature data sources such as the base maps and several others. By keeping our data license separated between private and commercial use, we can partner with commercial entities, who subscribe to our vision of keeping the app free to the community and opening up their data. Our first such partner is in Latin America where we have uploaded commercial maps to the community. Check out Quito (and, of course, the service is free): http://world.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=8&l ... yers=BTTTT

Since most of our systems are open source and our founders are big open source proponents, we like what OSM is doing and have enabled the download of your GPX files should anyone want to donate them to OSM. We are different than OSM since we build and manage a full system of client, real time servers, navigation and traffic, in addition to the mapping infrastructure (and, I know, the Cartouche is slow and we are working on it… ) with the intention of providing all of us with a valuable daily driving service. This can allow many more people to participate, use the client, drive, report and help out according to their skills. This gives our service mass market appeal beyond the GIS crowd.

On the other hand, our operation costs a lot of money to build and maintain and we will need to be profitable someday to be able to keep the service going and growing. This is why we will make our data available to commercial entities for a fee.

Our vision is to build and maintain the company as a community driven organization, you see Fej (The Fej), Dror (kranykd) and others as the face of this vision, but we are all striving to maintain this focus on a day to day basis. Let us know (as you do) where we can improve and bear with us as we struggle to deliver.

Thanks again for your time and help in building the service and I hope that, together, we can make our daily driving better, more efficient and fun.

Cheers,

Noam