How is this any different than the MPL 1.1 license? Section 8 of the MPL 1.1 has similar language.
/b
Facebook React.js License
71–80 of 203 posts
Re: Facebook React.js License
#72Email I just sent the OSI:
Please see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12692552
It turns out companies are now "bastardizing" the license terms. I would love for the OSI to re-evaluate if these licences are truly open source. Open source covers freedom, and I should think that these clauses abridge that freedom since it is very well possible for a company to be required to sue Apple or Facebook over patents. If that unrelated lawsuit "strips" your legal right to use software, that is NOT freedom.
Thanks
Re: Facebook React.js License
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
You will notice that most new projects all use MIT. Apache 2 hasn't been used for anything new in the last year+.
Have some examples? The MIT license is problematic with software patents. I see some projects moving to Apache2 for that reason (one prominent example here is Rust. They moved to an MIT/Apache2 dual licensing model).
What is the problem with the MIT license and patents?
The MIT license grants explicit rights to deal in the software without restriction.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's a great illustration of the difference between "open source" and "free software." In this case the source is still openly published, but under certain circumstances you're no longer free to redistribute.
Personally I think it's a great illustration that even software developers lack reading skills. Open Source means this, no more, no less: https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
> even software developers lack reading skills
A little condescending, no? Do you read (or expect everyone to) the EULA in full when you install Windows, and understand the implications of _all_ clauses? Or for that matter, the Privacy and User Agreements of any website you visit, e.g. Spotify, Facebook, HN (this very website), Netflix, Hulu, Google, etc., or software you might install, e.g. WhatsApp, Signal, iTunes, macOS, all the licenses visible and distributed with Android? What about your banks, and the actions they sneak in that give them the most freedom to do with your money/data under the law?
The text written in these agreements is foremost written for other lawyers, not you. Many companies have made them easier to parse, slowly prioritizing the user's ability to understand them.
Most people have fine reading skills. What you are misconstruing is an ability to understand and derive implications of legal agreements.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#75Hi, Paul from the React team here. There have been lots of questions about the license+patents combo we use. Recently our legal team answered some of those questions.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#76Re: Facebook React.js License
#77The way I read it, it's not evil. It's a known and deliberate shortcoming of many licenses (e.g. BSD) not to include patent stuff because it makes everything unnecessarily complex. There was recently an article about why BSD and MIT are so popular, and it's because they're concise and understandable. There is a reason WTFPL exists and some developers resort to it as a way to avoid legalese. Facebook clearly was aware…
I think you should read the article again. What it argues is that the licence essentially means that you can't initiate a lawsuit against FB for infringing one of your patents (which may have nothing to do with Reaft) without losing your React licence.
Now whether that bothers you or not depends on your individual circumstances and the sanity of your particular legal jurisdiction, but it certainly would be something of interest to any corporate legal team.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft is not necessarily a paragon of open source, but many of their open source projects use unadulterated OS licenses. Typescript is Apache 2: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/blob/master/LICENSE.... Visual Studio Code is MIT: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
You will notice that most new projects all use MIT. Apache 2 hasn't been used for anything new in the last year+.
Not true. In the Android world, Apache 2.0 is on everything.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#79The way I read it, it's not evil. It's a known and deliberate shortcoming of many licenses (e.g. BSD) not to include patent stuff because it makes everything unnecessarily complex. There was recently an article about why BSD and MIT are so popular, and it's because they're concise and understandable. There is a reason WTFPL exists and some developers resort to it as a way to avoid legalese. Facebook clearly was aware…
I agree with you, but I understand the issue being raised. The way I see this, the issue breaks down three ways (not chronologically):
1) Facebook publishes open source software, that everyone is free to use under copyright law. Everyone agrees this is a good thing.
2) The copyrighted software also includes the use of patented inventions, Facebook adds a patent license to assert that there are no submarine patents (that Facebook is not using copyleft as a means to setup future patent trolling). Everyone agrees this is a good thing.
3) The patent license is worded in such a way that it sets up a sort of 'patentleft'. Facebook is asserting not only that it's patents are defensive, but that there's a license which guarantees it. This license works kind of like copyleft does, though maybe with less precision (at the organizational level). It asserts that if your organization is using patentleft inventions, then by definition, all inventions that come from your organization are derivative works. Unlike Apple's open source license, the guarantees provided by patentleft have no bearing on your rights under copyleft. Not everyone agrees this is a good thing.
For patentleft, some people work in organizations that wish to split their efforts into those benefit from patentleft, from those that don't, like they currently can with copyleft. In the case of copyleft, it's a lot easier to detect infringement (does this code use copyrighted code). At the patent level, not only is it more difficult to tell, but the litigation around it is more difficult to settle.
I personally think that patents and copyrights, when done right, add value to society, but that current laws aren't "done right". Further, I think that copyleft and patentleft exist because of flaws in the existing system of patents and copyrights, are made to fix them, and I fully support that.
* Disclaimer * I am currently a Facebook employee, though my views don't necessarily represent those of the company. I wasn't an employee when the license was created, and I have no work involvement either in the license, or in software covered under the license. When the second/third clauses were added, I was a Google employee worried about the effects of these clauses.
Re: Facebook React.js License
#80Other Open Source licenses have patent termination provisions. Apache 2.0 (which React used to use) says "If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall…
The AL2 (and MPL2 and GPL3) language is designed to protect the users from the software authors. The Facebook PATENTS language is designed to protect Facebook from the users.