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Explaining React's license

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Re: Explaining React's license

#41

Post by beager »

As I understand the asymmetry in the BSD+patents license, the real issue here is that usage of React significantly weakens you with respect to mounting a defense against Facebook for infringing upon your own patents or IP, a possibility which, given the stark example of Instagram Stories, is plainly plausible. (This is not to say that Instagram Stories is patent theft, but rather a propensity to copy ideas wholesale).

Were Facebook to amend that license to soften the criteria for revocation of the license grant in cases of suits against Facebook for infringement, this outrage might just go away. But as it stands now, Facebook stands to exercise an ability to infringe on others' patents for monetary gain so long as the patent holder uses React in deployment. It would be easy to weaponize this arrangement, and you have to assume that any fiduciary would consider it.

More broadly, this is a good case to be made against software patents in general.

Re: Explaining React's license

#42

Post by pdfernhout »

votepaunchy wrote: post #30
jnbiche wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fallback"? Are you referring to Preact?

No. The PATENTS portion of BSD+Patents does not nullify the BSD License. So you are no worse off than had Facebook simply licensed the code under the BSD License.

This suggests an implicit grant is better than an explicit more limited grant: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

From there:

In 2005, Dan Ravicher explained[2] that, in the USA, recipients of software under the GNU GPL version 2 receive an implicied patent grant, based on the following US case law.

* De Forest Radio, 273 U.S. 236 (1927) "No formal granting of a license is necessary in order to give it effect. Any language used by the owner of the patent, or any conduct on his part exhibited to another from which that other may properly infer that the owner consents to his use of the patent in making or using it, or selling it, upon which the other acts, constitutes a license."

* Hewlett - Packard Co. v . Repeat - O-Type Stencil Mfg. Corp. , Inc., 123 F. 3d 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1997). "Generally, when a seller sells a product without restriction, it in effect promises the purchaser that in exchange for the price paid, it will not interfere wit h the purchaser's full enjoyment of the product purchased. The buyer has an implied license under any patents of the seller that dominate the product or any uses of the product to which the parties might reasonably contemplate the product will be put."

* Bottom Line Mgmt., Inc. v. Pan Man, Inc., 228 F. 3d 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2000) "Unless the parties provide otherwise, the purchaser of a patented article has an implied license not only to use and sell it, but also to repair it to enable it to function properly. This implied license covers both the original purchaser of the article and all subsequent purchasers"

Re: Explaining React's license

#43

Post by [deleted] »

eridius wrote: post #35

> We've been looking for ways around this and have reached out to ASF to see if we could try to work with them, but have come up empty. There's a pretty obvious solution to this: relicense React. The fact that Facebook isn't even considering that is a pretty strong indication that they "weaponized" their license on purpose. > To this point, though, we haven't done a good job of explaining the reasons behind our BSD +…

[deleted]

Re: Explaining React's license

#44

Post by gstein67 »

votepaunchy wrote: post #30
jnbiche wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fallback"? Are you referring to Preact?

No. The PATENTS portion of BSD+Patents does not nullify the BSD License. So you are no worse off than had Facebook simply licensed the code under the BSD License.

That is not entirely true. As stated elsewhere, there is likely an implicit patent license provided by the BSD. The reasoning is basically, "we are [copyright] licensing this cod e to you to use, so [therefore] we must also be providing a corresponding patent license to use the code."

Legal scholars are mixed on that, and it hasn't been tested in court.

But that implicit license is certainly better than the explicit license in FB's code.

To sum up: you may be worse off with BSD+Patents.

Re: Explaining React's license

#45

Post by talkingtab »

My worry is that the BSD+patent license puts FB in the position where they are able violate valid patents that another company hold. If that company is using React, they will have a strong incentive not to pursue their claims against FB because it means they would have to rewrite their code. Is this a valid concern?

Re: Explaining React's license

#46

Post by pdfernhout »

votepaunchy wrote: post #29
pdfernhout wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it is not, and that is what so many people misunderstand about this. Plain BSD has an implicit patent grant to the extent needed to run the software. An explicit patent license overrides that implicit grant. Of course, that interpretation is still subject to what the courts say in a lawsuit. Of course, you are right that legal and corporate should review such a license. And for any company that deals in patents (o…

That assumption of an 'implicit' grant is quite tenuous. You have taken it as invalidated by a PATENTS file, what if instead of a PATENTS file Facebook legal had blogged that they don't believe in an implicit grant? Does that nullify the grant of patents? What if stated by a project contributor? That's the conundrum for any open source project and the exposed danger of the BSD license.

See my other comment here on implicit patent grants: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051166

I doubt some statement of opinion in some out-of-the-way place that did not accompany the software directly would hold up in court.

That said, your point on uncertainty is why many people prefer the Apache2 License or the GPL3 which have an explicit patent grant (but not a one-sided grant like in Facebook's PATENTS file).

Re: Explaining React's license

#47

Post by jnbiche »

votepaunchy wrote: post #30
jnbiche wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fallback"? Are you referring to Preact?

No. The PATENTS portion of BSD+Patents does not nullify the BSD License. So you are no worse off than had Facebook simply licensed the code under the BSD License.

Wow, that is pretty disingenuous. Clearly, BSD+Patents places some extra conditions on the BSD license, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand that. I mean, several people have provided the legal reasons elsewhere on this thread, but even the name "BSD PLUS Patents" should be a tip-off.

Re: Explaining React's license

#48

Post by paxy »

eridius wrote: post #33
bpicolo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without first re-writing the entire front-end to not use React Do note this isn't necessarily the case, because nobody has yet found a patent that covers React.

Facebook's license means you lose the license to React if you sue Facebook for any patents, not just for patents that are related to React. That's the core problem here.

Exactly. The "BSD + patents" license applies to _all_ of React, not just the parts of React that use Facebook proprietary technology/patents (and they haven't even identified those parts).

I'm never going to use React under this license, but this is still worrying to me because more companies could follow Facebook's lead and start using open-source as a nuclear deterrent against patent legislation.

Re: Explaining React's license

#49

Post by kbenson »

spacetexas wrote: post #36

Disappointed to see no forward upfront stance on what Facebook will do if someone sues them for a patent infringement unrelated to React in any way. Will note though that if Facebook does choose to revoke a license on the basis of getting sued for something unrelated it will definitely reflect poorly on FB in the developer community and reduce React's adoption.

> Disappointed to see no forward upfront stance on what Facebook will do if someone sues them for a patent infringement unrelated to React in any way.

Well, they've specifically related React if it's in use, so the only case where it's not related is if isn't being used by the plaintiff.

In a similar vein, people are wondering what Facebook will do with patent infringement suits that do have merit, to which I ask, when's the last time a company defending a patent suit stated the plaintiff's case had merit.

Re: Explaining React's license

#50

Post by jnbiche »

tbrock wrote: post #25

Isn't the style of programming react imposes (unidirectional data flow and component composition) the real innovation for front end applications here? Sure the dom diffing technology was hot at the time it came out but it's basically is a commodity item at this point. In that sense, the open source community can (and should) build multiple react clones that are licensed more liberally. Sure, I'm annoyed by the licens…

I agree, and I for one will start using Preact and/or Inferno henceforth.
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