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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

#171

Post by cygx »

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…

Not necessarily. Case in point: Its language regarding patents is what made the OSI reject CC0 (or discuss it to death until its application was withdrawn):

Without an explicit mention of patents, it's up to the courts to decide whether the grant of usage rights includes an implicit grant of patent right. With an explicit mention, you're hosed.

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

#172

Post by vbernat »

khuey wrote: post #127
vbernat wrote: post #118

How did Facebook was able to change the license of RocksDB so easily? The CLA is not a copyright assignment and therefore all contributors have to agree for the change. Did they contact anyone who has signed up the CLA?

On purely copyright grounds, any BSD licensed code can be relicensed as Apache 2.0 code. And the patent grant was solely from Facebook so it can be modified at their discretion.

First paragraph of BSD license says: "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright-notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer".

I agree you can add the Apache 2.0 license on top of that, but you cannot discard the BSD license unless you own the code.

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

#173

Post by ergo14 »

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…

I don't think Google is doing the same - look at Polymer for example. You also have a patent grant but it expires if you try to attack possible patents related to Polymer itself - its like in Apache 2.0 which is more sane in my opinion.

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

#174

Post by discordianfish »

captainmuon wrote: post #151

I think this is an overreaction (pun accidental). There are two things here: The copyright license, and the patent grant. Copyright applies to the concrete implementation. You have to agree to the license to be subject to it, and to legally use the code. A potential patent applies to any implementation. Even if you write a clean-room clone of React, if it uses the same patent, Facebook has a patent claim. But that me…

That's how I understand the patent grant too. Are people here really confusing a grant with some sort of restricting of their freedom or do we miss something? I frankly don't want to believe everyone, including apache foundation, believes this without getting their facts straight..?

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

#175

Post by dchest »

khuey wrote: post #127
vbernat wrote: post #118

How did Facebook was able to change the license of RocksDB so easily? The CLA is not a copyright assignment and therefore all contributors have to agree for the change. Did they contact anyone who has signed up the CLA?

On purely copyright grounds, any BSD licensed code can be relicensed as Apache 2.0 code. And the patent grant was solely from Facebook so it can be modified at their discretion.

This is incorrect. Here's the full text of BSD license:

    Copyright (c) 2011 The LevelDB Authors. All rights reserved.
    
    Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
    modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
    met:
    
       * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
       * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
    copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
    in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
    distribution.
       * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its
    contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
    this software without specific prior written permission.
    
    THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
    "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
    LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
    A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
    OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
    SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
    LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
    DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
    THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
    (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
    OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
    View
The first list item disproves your statement.

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

#176

Post by ergo14 »

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.

I dunno "every single large company" seems like an overstatement. Maybe thats the reason some of big enterprises are still on Angular and Polymer - some go for Vue. Some of them also have BSD+Patents but its less broad.

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

#177

Post by captainmuon »

emn13 wrote: post #165
captainmuon wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if there was no patent grant, and just the BSD license? Then you have no patent protection in the first place! You are in the same situation as when the patent grant expired because you sued them. I don't see how this is any better. You do not give them a license to use any patent. You are right that in practice the non-enforcement means that they can willy-nilly use your patents. But if we are arguing about fac…

You are in a better place though - because you're not the only react user. If indeed it turns out there are some submarine react patents facebook owns, with this patent license most other users can continue to work. Without the license, facebook then has the choice to either sue everybody (kind of unlikely) or to create the situation wherein suddenly everyone knows that they're infringing but haven't yet been sued, o…

> no large company is every going to agree to such an assymetrical deal.

The thing is, if you just use react for something inconsequential, and can live with the fact that you have to cease using it when you sue Facebook, then it is fine.

You shouldn't base your business on Facebook's (potential) patents, and then attack them with your own patents - but that is true with or without the patent grant.

Of course, what would be great would be 1) a finer grained, symmetrical patent grant, or 2) a bilateral agreement between your company and Facebook instead of the patent grant. If you are big enough and have patents, you can probably negotiate something like that.

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

#179

Post by dchest »

vbernat wrote: post #118

How did Facebook was able to change the license of RocksDB so easily? The CLA is not a copyright assignment and therefore all contributors have to agree for the change. Did they contact anyone who has signed up the CLA?

All contributors to RocksDB signed Facebook's CLA https://code.facebook.com/cla/individual which states:

    2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
    Agreement, You hereby grant to Facebook and to recipients of software
    distributed by Facebook a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge,
    royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative
    works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute Your
    Contributions and such derivative works.

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

#180

Post by threatofrain »

mlsarecmg wrote: post #162
fencepost wrote: post #146

I was interested in React based on what I'd read and was figuring it'd be worth looking into, but this provides all the reason I need to avoid it - I don't forsee a situation where I would personally or as a small company be suing Facebook, but I could see developing something then selling/trying to sell it to a larger company. If my code comes with a big side of "oh, and if you buy this you won't be able to sue Face…

You can't avoid react because it started a new paradigm. 9 out of 10 frameworks are based on the same principles and native follows suit where even big vendors are changing their strategies for mobile and desktop to align them with reacts principles (react-native, microsofts react-native-windows, reactxp and office fiber, googles kotlin for android, litho, componentkit, etc). Switching from react to something else is…

The paradigm is everywhere, so just use another library that uses that paradigm, like Inferno or Preact, or even something slightly different like Vue if you want.
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