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Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

issues.apache.org

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Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#51

Post by nsser »

tomelders wrote: post #45

Ok. With the BSD + patent grant Do you have a license to use Facebook's patents? Yes. Do you have a license to use Facebooks patents if Facebook brings a patent case against you? Yes. Do you have a license to use Facebooks patents if you bring a patent case against us? No. If you do not have a patent grant, can you still use React? YES! If you're going to down vote this, please say why. This is how I interpret the li…

>The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (ii) against any party if such Patent ?> > Assertion arises in whole or in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software.

Its not talking about terminating the patent grant, its talking about terminating the license to use.

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#52

Post by geofft »

tomelders wrote: post #44
geofft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Mark Thomas's comment on this bug: > My reading of that is if you use this code and Facebook infringes a completely unrelated patent that you own, you can't sue them for infringement without giving up this patent license. That is much broader than the language in the ALv2 which is limited to a single work. So it almost certainly doesn't affect personal projects unless you are the sort of person who files for pat…

I think this is misleading. In the event that you bring a patent infringement case against Facebook, you still have a license to use react, but you lose the patent rights that would cover you if you came up with something that infringed on a Facebook patent. Meaning that you now have to fight your case in court without any protection. You're safer with this license and the patent grant, than you are without it. The B…

That depends on whether you believe that the BSD license gives you an implied patent grant - it does, after all, just say "Redistribution and use...are permitted," without saying anything specific to copyright.

See also http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

If the concept of an implicit patent license is coherent and legally meaningful (it sounds like it is), then an explicit patent license, like Facebook's, would supersede it - and so losing your rights under the explicit license would leave you worse off than relying on the implicit one.

In any case, this is why people like the Apache license and the GPLv3, so you don't have to think about whether a patent license is implied. Both of those have explicit patent licenses with significantly less draconian termination clauses than Facebook's.

(Obviously I am not a lawyer, otherwise I'd know better than to comment on HN about unclear areas of IP law.)

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#53

Post by carussell »

cma wrote: post #35
numair wrote: post #18

Finally, people are beginning to realize the insanity of this entire PATENTS file situation! When I first brought up how misguided people were for embracing React and projects with this license, I was downvoted to hell on HN. But really, everyone, THINK ABOUT IT. This is a company that glorifies and celebrates IP theft from others, and lionizes their employees who successfully clone others’ projects. They’ve built th…

Yep, the patent grant is not fully reciprocal. As I understand it: To use React, you give Facebook permission to use any of your software patents (edit: all patents, even on a new jet engine) throughout your whole company. Facebook gives you permission to use only the software patents necessary for React. If your company sues Facebook over an unrelated software patent (edit: as above, any patent), your React license…

> As I understand it: To use React, you give Facebook permission to use any of your software patents throughout your whole company.

That is, on its face, absolutely untrue. Nowhere in the React patent terms does it specify that you grant Facebook rights to use your patents--not even to ones related to React.

That's something that isn't in the React terms, nor does it seem to show up in any legal analyses published online from a lawyer making that claim. (None of the analyses I've seen, at least; if you found some, please post them.) In fact, the only place where this claim does crop up is in off-the-cuff message board comments.

FWIW, I don't use React, I don't want to, I'm not a Facebook employee, and in fact I think the world would be a lot better off with Facebook having less influence than they do today. But that doesn't change how weird it is to keep seeing comments like yours that make claims like the one above.

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#54

Post by [deleted] »

nine_k wrote: post #20
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering almost every single large tech company is using React, presumably there's not much reason for concern? IANAL. But you're not wrong, preact is a great alternative to react and it comes with a permissive license.

Some large tech companies may have large coffers of money and other bargaining power, and thus use React. Many don't, and don't. BTW one can use [preact] which is an almost drop-in replacement, but smaller, and is under MIT license. [preact]: https://github.com/developit/preact/

[deleted]

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#55

Post by FRex »

RHSeeger wrote: post #47
geofft wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Mark Thomas's comment on this bug: > My reading of that is if you use this code and Facebook infringes a completely unrelated patent that you own, you can't sue them for infringement without giving up this patent license. That is much broader than the language in the ALv2 which is limited to a single work. So it almost certainly doesn't affect personal projects unless you are the sort of person who files for pat…

> In effect, you may as well be granting Facebook a patent license to literally all your patents for use in any context, in exchange for using React. I'd say that's overstating the case. You aren't granting them a license to your patents and you can still sue them for infringing (which you would not be able to do if you granted them a license). Rather, you are promising to look the other way for as long as you are us…

Point 2. sounds kinda sketchy. Facebook's BSD says that even 'take a direct financial interest in' suing is forbidden. So if you begin cutting React out of your operations and then sue them already React-free they will probably try to claim that for a time you were using their patents in React illegally because you considered suing them before removing it and at that moment the patent grant terminated.

https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#56

Post by Lazare »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #14
softinio wrote: post #4

I really have no idea why react is so popular with such a silly license. I agree with this move. There are plenty of OSS projects out there without patent thing attached to its license so no reason to use react.

Considering almost every single large tech company is using React, presumably there's not much reason for concern? IANAL. But you're not wrong, preact is a great alternative to react and it comes with a permissive license.

If you're concerned about React, then Preact is actually significantly worse.

Consider: The risk for React is based on 1) speculation that Facebook has patents on core React concepts and 2) the fact that patent grant that comes with React terminates in some situations if you end up in conflict with Facebook. So for safety, it might be better to make sure you use code that Facebook has no patents on, which (if (1) above is true) means "code that is nothing like react at all".

A React clone that doesn't have the patent grant at all is vulnerable to all the same issues React itself is, plus more. It's strictly more dangerous than using React itself.

(Unless, of course, we assume there's some bit of React that's subject to a Facebook-owned patent that would not also apply to Preact. But having spent a few minutes thinking about it, nothing leaps out at me.)

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#57

Post by olalonde »

numair wrote: post #18

Finally, people are beginning to realize the insanity of this entire PATENTS file situation! When I first brought up how misguided people were for embracing React and projects with this license, I was downvoted to hell on HN. But really, everyone, THINK ABOUT IT. This is a company that glorifies and celebrates IP theft from others, and lionizes their employees who successfully clone others’ projects. They’ve built th…

> This is a company that glorifies and celebrates IP theft from others, and lionizes their employees who successfully clone others’ projects.

What are you referring to?

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#58

Post by Lazare »

tomelders wrote: post #37

INAL - But this seems strange to me. The Apache license has what I see as being the same patent grant, with the same condition that if you make a claim against them, you lose the patent grant. Apache 2.0 > 3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated i…

The difference you're missing is that the Apache 2.0 terminates if you end up in a patent dispute related to the software. Facebook's parent grant terminates if you sue them over any patent.

So hypothetically if Google released some JS frontend library under Apache 2.0, I don't lose the patent grant if I sue them for violating my company's VR patents, whereas I do lose my patent grant to React if I sue Facebook for violating my VR patents.

My company happily uses React, because we don't believe that's a risk worth worrying about, but it is a difference, and it might be relevant to some.

Re: Apache Foundation disallows use of the Facebook “BSD+Patent” license

#60

Post by Lazare »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

In the discussion they say RocksDB will be relicensed under dual license Apache 2 and GPL 2. There's already an issue [0] asking them to consider doing something similar for react, and Dan Abramov said he'd route the request internally on the next work day. I can't imagine they'd keep the existing license without harming their community image. But even if they keep the license, many applications should be able to eas…

What patents do you imagine Facebook might have on React's concepts that Preact would not also violate?
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