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Facebook React.js License

elcaminolegal.com

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Re: Facebook React.js License

#41

Post by gcp »

shadowmint wrote: post #39

If companies fear that if they try to enforce their patents they will lose access to significant commercial opportunities as a result of not being able to use projects such as react... ...basically, I welcome it. Patents are harmful. The FSF has, to my knowledge, made no meaningful progress in significant patent reform. If this helps, then bring it on.

Facebook's patent license doesn't grant you any patents outside the ones used by React.

It does grant them freedom to use any patent you may have (if you use their software).

See the problem? Even if you don't like patents, it makes the playing field totally uneven.

Re: Facebook React.js License

#42

Post by bluejekyll »

mjg59 wrote: post #23

Version 2 of the Apple Public Source License includes the following termination clause: 12.1 Termination. This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate: … (c) automatically without notice from Apple if You, at any time during the term of this License, commence an action for patent infringement against Apple; provided that Apple did not first commence an action for patent infringement against You in tha…

For new projects, my understanding is that Apple is using Apache and not the APSL any longer. Swift for example.

I just looked at XNU and it is still under the APSL. Does anyone know why a company would not want to go back and change the license of a project? Is it that the company doesn't have the copyright but the individual developers? Even if all the developers only worked for the primary company?

Re: Facebook React.js License

#43

Post by iplaw »

So this attorney's problem is that rather than ambiguously granting a license to the patent claims necessary to implement this software, they decided to explicitly grant such rights? I see no problems.

Re: Facebook React.js License

#44

Post by joatmon-snoo »

falsestprophet wrote: post #35

After Alice v. CLS , what patents about React could be enforced? edit: After Alice there has been a software patent massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_United_...

IANAL but OTOH I would argue that Alice isn't very relevant here. The chief rationale behind that case was the triviality of the core algorithm being described: if there isn't enough money in an account, you don't withdraw money from the account.

Re: Facebook React.js License

#45

Post by gcp »

iplaw wrote: post #43

So this attorney's problem is that rather than ambiguously granting a license to the patent claims necessary to implement this software, they decided to explicitly grant such rights? I see no problems.

No, his problem is with the breadth of the patent assertion Facebook makes. He's not the first to point out it's unusually in favor of Facebook, even compared to patent grants from Microsoft and Google.

Re: Facebook React.js License

#46

Post by bluejekyll »

bad_user wrote: post #13

Facebook's license is even weaker than a BSD/MIT license without any PATENTS license attached at all. Because in that case the patents grant can be considered implicit , depending on jurisdiction. By including a PATENTS license in that repository, Facebook nullifies the possibility of such a defense.

I wish he went into more detail on the difference between this and the Apache2 patent grants.

I've been favoring Apache2, and am considering adopting the GPLv2 compatibility clause that is being added to Swift.

Re: Facebook React.js License

#47

Post by cjbprime »

The argument that "This is Not Open Source Software" feels unsupported and very sloppy.

> Thus, the licensee pays a price to use the library. It is not a price paid with money. [..] I could be missing something, but I have never seen any other software license use such a condition and also claim to be an open source license.

This just isn't thinking creatively. The GPL also requires a "price to be paid, but not with money" -- you give up your right to keep changes you make secret (if you distribute them). Yet no-one seriously argues that the GPL isn't an open source license.

If there is something about giving up the right to file patent lawsuits that is totally different to giving up the right to keep your changes secret, the article doesn't say what that difference is. Giving up the right to keep your changes secret is surely more stringent than giving up your right to file patent infringement lawsuits against one company. Why, then, should the latter be a dealbreaker for an open source license?

Re: Facebook React.js License

#48

Post by Noseshine »

So I checked StackExchange's law site and found this question - thus far unanswered, but those would be my questions exactly:

http://law.stackexchange.com/questions/14337/q-about-consequ...

It comes down to two questions (quoted from the linked question) - note that those are questions, not assertions:

1)

  > ... if we use any of Facebook's open source projects Facebook can violate *our patents* (of any
  > kind) pretty much with impunity: If we try to sue them we lose the right to patents covering their
  > open source projects(?)
2)

  > I have read opinions that other open source projects that don't have such a clause, for example 
  > those from Microsoft or Google, nevertheless have the exact same problem, only that it isn't 
  > explicitly stated. Is that true? Is my situation not any better when I only use open source 
  > projects without such a clause?
I think that is a good point. The many opinions I see are almost all from people who don't have their own patents to think about, but what happens if you are a company and you do? Would you basically allow Facebook to use any of your patents, because for all practical purposes you can't defend them if you rely on their open source projects?

Re: Facebook React.js License

#49

Post by gcp »

cjbprime wrote: post #47

The argument that "This is Not Open Source Software" feels unsupported and very sloppy. > Thus, the licensee pays a price to use the library. It is not a price paid with money. [..] I could be missing something, but I have never seen any other software license use such a condition and also claim to be an open source license. This just isn't thinking creatively. The GPL also requires a "price to be paid, but not with…

I think the argument is that the grant is asymmetric. GPL is "I open up, you open up". The retaliation clause Facebook uses is "you don't get to sue us, but we may sue you".

Re: Facebook React.js License

#50

Post by bad_user »

bluejekyll wrote: post #46
bad_user wrote: post #13

Facebook's license is even weaker than a BSD/MIT license without any PATENTS license attached at all. Because in that case the patents grant can be considered implicit , depending on jurisdiction. By including a PATENTS license in that repository, Facebook nullifies the possibility of such a defense.

I wish he went into more detail on the difference between this and the Apache2 patent grants. I've been favoring Apache2, and am considering adopting the GPLv2 compatibility clause that is being added to Swift.

Apache 2 is definitely much better.

IANAL, but I've written about the difference in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12692852

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