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Explaining React's license

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Re: Explaining React's license

#171

Post by fhrow4484 »

DannyBee wrote: post #159

So, i feel for them, having watched Google's open source projects be targeted by patent trolls in the past. But i really don't think this is the way forward. A few things: 1. If you want to suggest you are doing this as part of an attempt to avoid meritless litigation, you really should give concrete examples of that happening. Otherwise, it comes off as a smoke screen. 2. The assertion is that if widely adopted, it…

That's a good point, especially since the concrete examples won't possibly be about patent trolls. Why would patent trolls (aka Non practicing entities) care about loosing rights "to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the [React] Software". (as defined in https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933...)?

Re: Explaining React's license

#172

Post by carussell »

DannyBee wrote: post #159

So, i feel for them, having watched Google's open source projects be targeted by patent trolls in the past. But i really don't think this is the way forward. A few things: 1. If you want to suggest you are doing this as part of an attempt to avoid meritless litigation, you really should give concrete examples of that happening. Otherwise, it comes off as a smoke screen. 2. The assertion is that if widely adopted, it…

> no startup that they decide to take technology from, and say "no more react (or whatever) for you" could realistically launch an effective lawsuit before they died

If it's the case that these startups wouldn't have the resources to mount an effective lawsuit, then that's true regardless, no? Whatever the React terms say are moot. (I might be misunderstanding; the sentence is one that's hard to parse.)

> All of the current revisions of the major licenses (Apachev2, GPLv3) went through arguments about whether to use these kinds of clauses (though not quite as one sided and company focused), and ultimately decided not to.

When MPL2 was being drafted, I pointed out that a strong, React-like approach to patents would be better, because the protection that Apache 2.0 offers against patents is very narrow. My takeaway was that the reason not to do so was because it wouldn't have been politically expedient at the time—it would just result in people rejecting the MPL. If Facebook is now taking that approach, then run with it now; it suggests the idea should be opened back up for reconsideration in future revisions of these licenses because they can capitalize on the momentum.

Re: Explaining React's license

#173

Post by khuey »

devdoomari wrote: post #103
kevinflo wrote: post #101

I love love love love love react as a technology, but this is just awful. I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop. I personally feel like such a fool for not taking all this seriously before the ASF gave me a wakeup call. React is a trojan horse into the open source community that Facebook purposely and maliciously stee…

+1 on this. I'm going for Preact ( https://github.com/developit/preact ) for React alternative.

If React really is covered by patents Facebook has then Preact is likely infringing on them since it does the same things in similar ways. And Preact doesn't come with a patent grant from Facebook at all.

Re: Explaining React's license

#174

Post by DannyBee »

antoncohen wrote: post #129

Facebook's license is no more dangerous than regular MIT or BSD-style licenses. If you are OK with using MIT or BSD licensed software you should be OK with using Facebook's BSD + Patents software. Here is why: MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued fo…

"MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement. " Every single lawyer i've ever spoken to strongly believes implied licenses will protect you very well here. Like, among us open source lawyers, it's pretty much the one thing people agree on.

"If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you."

This is just flat out false, and i'm not sure why you believe this. The termination is broader than the grant. The grant is for patents in a given piece of software, the termination crosses all software.

Concretely: if you use react, and they sue you over patents in notreact, and you countersue, you do not lose your react patent license. They are still welcome to sue you over notreact, there is nothing in this license that will prevent that from happening. It only gave you patent rights to react.

(It also says that if you sue them over notreact, you will lose all patent licenses in all software that use this license, which is why the termination is broader than the grant).

"The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection."

This is also an incorrect legal statement.

Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. In this case, the terms of the implied grant were much better for people than the terms of the explicit one. So you are, in fact, losing something

Re: Explaining React's license

#175

Post by antoncohen »

mcbits wrote: post #167
antoncohen wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you lose the patent license, not the copyright license. From Facebook's blog post: > The patent grant says that if you're going to use the software we've released under it, you lose the patent license from us if you sue us for patent infringement. https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...

My reading must be off, then. Is "under any Necessary Claims" the magic phrase?

Yeah, it is defined at the bottom of the file:

> A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone.

So when they say "license under any Necessary Claims" they are granting a patent license, the copyright license in the LICENSE file is separate.

The FAQ link provided by silentstreet makes it very clear:

> Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate? > > No.

https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

Re: Explaining React's license

#177

Post by WalterSear »

drieddust wrote: post #153
kevinflo wrote: post #101

I love love love love love react as a technology, but this is just awful. I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop. I personally feel like such a fool for not taking all this seriously before the ASF gave me a wakeup call. React is a trojan horse into the open source community that Facebook purposely and maliciously stee…

Agreed and there is no reason to still stick with react when alternatives like vuejs and angular are available. Its not that great anyways when compared to angular 2/4. There are too many concepts to be mastered and it soon become overwhelming. I tried learning react but dropped it after spending a week when I still could not understand routing. Sense of cohesiveness between different concepts is missing. I believe s…

React doesn't do routing. It's a view library.

And for me, the opposite was true vis-a-vis Angular and React, though got as far as making contributions to the Angular 2 tools before I decided to jumping ship.

Re: Explaining React's license

#178

Post by WalterSear »

devdoomari wrote: post #103
kevinflo wrote: post #101

I love love love love love react as a technology, but this is just awful. I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop. I personally feel like such a fool for not taking all this seriously before the ASF gave me a wakeup call. React is a trojan horse into the open source community that Facebook purposely and maliciously stee…

+1 on this. I'm going for Preact ( https://github.com/developit/preact ) for React alternative.

Could anyone with experience porting from one to the other let us know how it went?

Re: Explaining React's license

#179

Post by carussell »

DannyBee wrote: post #170
carussell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how Facebook would feel if all the open source software they currently use incorporated the same license That would work incredibly well to neutralize patents, actually, and would be a huge win for free/open source software. It's surprising not to have seen anyone point out the logical conclusion of a world where every major license includes a React-like stance on patents: it's a world where no one is able to bring…

"it's a world where no one is able to bring patent suits against anyone, because it means they are now violating the licenses of every piece of FOSS they're currently using." It's also a world where entrenched companies can feel free to use whatever technology they want from smaller competitors without fear of lawsuit, and use it to further entrench themselves :) I'd put a lot more money on that happening than "happy…

See my response to your top-level comment above.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15051709

Re: Explaining React's license

#180

Post by EduardoBautista »

drieddust wrote: post #153
kevinflo wrote: post #101

I love love love love love react as a technology, but this is just awful. I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop. I personally feel like such a fool for not taking all this seriously before the ASF gave me a wakeup call. React is a trojan horse into the open source community that Facebook purposely and maliciously stee…

Agreed and there is no reason to still stick with react when alternatives like vuejs and angular are available. Its not that great anyways when compared to angular 2/4. There are too many concepts to be mastered and it soon become overwhelming. I tried learning react but dropped it after spending a week when I still could not understand routing. Sense of cohesiveness between different concepts is missing. I believe s…

React Native is what I believe to be the big thing in the React community. I haven't hear of anything similar in the Angular or Vue ecosystems.
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