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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

#371

Post by blazespin »

SwellJoe wrote: post #364
blazespin wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the whole point of patents. You want me to give you a list of patent lawsuits? :) Google is your friend.

I want an example of a case where a small software company successfully litigated a patent lawsuit against a huge company like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. Preferably one where the instigator of the lawsuit was legitimately defending something novel and innovative. This is subjective, of course, and I tend to come down on the side of software not being something that should be patentable... but , it is patentabl…

Well, defending the company might entail getting acquired by another large company or NPA. I don't know of any examples where a small company sued a large one and continued to do business based on that lawsuit, but the threat of getting acquired certainly adds value to the company itself and discourages large companies from blatant copying.

Take that threat away, and small companies lose value and large companies copy without regret.

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

#373

Post by nojvek »

chrisco255 wrote: post #239
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very limited “use”; mostly just enabling external developers to interface using React to their existing tools (that are not using React). If the Armageddon should come, and Microsoft is to enter a legal patent dispute/battle, stopping this React “use” is a no-op for Microsoft.

Microsoft builds Skype on React Native. They use React in production on several websites including outlook.com. They are using it internally and not just for external devs. Also see this HN thread from a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12108273

You'd be actually surprised how many teams inside Microsoft wrote their own smaller versions of OS libraries. It happened a lot less after Nadella era, but Ballmer era had a "we can't use anything not built here"

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

#374

Post by HelloNurse »

mixedbit wrote: post #306
viraptor wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not the case. Some licenses like Apache-2 explicitly grant you the use of necessary patents. Others do not. And there are projects which are absolutely covered by patents, yet the code is opensource. That was the situation with Gif and MP3 formats for years. I was involved with an opensource project which got a patent application submitted by the company. Even though I pointed out prior art. And eve…

As far as I know GIF and MP3 decoders were made open source not by the patent holders, if the patent holders open sourced the decoders, would they be able to enforce the patent rights?

The license of an open source implementation is granted by the authors and allows you to make copies and derivative works, while a patent grant comes from the patent holder and allows you to actually use the software. They are two completely independent things.

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

#375

Post by discordianfish »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #316
discordianfish wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way does it restrict you from suing Facebook? From what I can tell the patent grant is only beneficial to users of the software, not facebook. And it exists to address the concerns people might have that, if they use any facebook tech, they might risk getting sued. If you decide to sue, you're as good off as before. But if you don't sue, you can be sure facebook will never sue you either for violation of the…

> In what way does it restrict you from suing Facebook? Economically, by losing the license to use React in your product once you serve them with papers. It's an implied gun to the head. Or poison pill, if you prefer.

You're not losing the license to use React if you sue Facebook. You only loose the patent grant if you do. In which case you're off as without a grant in the first place. At least that's how I understand it, so this still looks to me like people raging about something they simply don't understand.

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

#376

Post by developit »

Lazare wrote: post #321
developit wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true, since Preact only implements the same software interface. Its internals are fundamentally different and not a derivative work. Software interfaces cannot be patented - this has been upheld in every court, most recently in Google V Oracle.

> Its internals are fundamentally different and not a derivative work. That would be a strong defence to a copyright claim. We're talking about patents, where there is no concept of "derivative works", and what matters isn't implementations but broad concepts. > Software interfaces cannot be patented Right, but what makes Preact concerning isn't that it offers the same API, but that it is built using the same underly…

Understandable, and agreed about my point being for copyright as opposed to patents. It's interesting to note that, since the majority of DOM rendering libraries now employ some variant of Virtual DOM (react, preact, mithril, glimmer/ember, angular, even polymer!), a patent claim covering the concept of Virtual DOM itself would likely be invalid - the presence of so many prior and contemporary implementations of that paradigm make would invalidate it on the grounds that it cannot be "Non-obvious" or "non-novel". My knowledge of this stuff is largely gleaned from Wikipedia and thus not to be trusted, but it seems like there would be little grounds for a patent suit over VDOM. Also interesting to note: there are few (if any?) other companies directly associated with any of the other VDOM implementations - can a patent claim even be made against an Open Source project?

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

#378

Post by webmink »

plastroltech wrote: post #363

There is so much FUD around this PATENTS file. If Facebook had not included this Patent grant and had released React under only the BSD license then any user would be in the exact situation which everyone is complaining so loudly about being in IF they decide to bring a patent action against Facebook. Specifically, you would be open to being sued by Facebook for violating a patent which they own. What this grant says…

To put it concisely, “why is having a patent license until you commence litigation worse than not having one at all?” The answer is subtle.

Many corporate lawyers operate on the assumption that all open source licenses that do not mention patents (BSD, MIT etc) implicitly grant a patent license. Clarifying this ambiguity is seen by them as harmful — that’s why approval of CC0 at OSI was abandoned[1], for example. Including an explicit patent grant removes the possibility this could be argued in court and is seen as an escalation of the patent conflict by Facebook.

Given many voices at Apache are being quietly guided by corporate counsel, this seems the most likely underlying explanation for the antipathy that's been rationalised out into the open.

[1] https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero

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

#379

Post by sbarre »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #354
sbarre wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, anecdotally speaking of course, my company does work for most of the major (a) banks, (b) telcos and (c) insurance companies in Canada, and the majority of them are moving from Angular 1.x to React (because Angular 4 is a mess) for their front-end work, both on the public and secure side of things. Hopefully they've all done their due diligence..

wouldn't that mean that your company is covered by the react clause but your clients aren't? of course they're not worried, if they're a separate entity they aren't the one in the agreement.

We typically deliver pages and/or SPAs into their existing environments, where these libraries are already installed globally, so I don't think so.

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

#380

Post by mosen »

tomelders wrote: post #40
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.

Preact is not an alternative I'd reccomend. It's riddled with very serious bugs. I've found it incredibly difficult to work with.

https://github.com/developit/preact/issues - would you mind logging them as issues?
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