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Explaining React's license

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201–210 of 622 posts

Re: Explaining React's license

#201
What I don't really understand is if they're worried about patent trolls, how would this have any effect at all?

Patent trolls are companies that don't create anything, and just sue with their patent portfolio instead, so why would they care that they can't use react patents anymore?

Re: Explaining React's license

#202
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sadly false. This would only neutralize patents of actual companies that have something to create. The only ones left to hold patents would be patent trolls. This would just massively empower patent trolls, and harm everyone. Because patent trolls don’t have to license patents there’s no risk for them.

See my remark about impossible audits. Patent trolls are almost definitely relying on FOSS whether they're in the business of creating software or not.

If I were a patent troll, I would get a Windows computer with a slightly old version of Microsoft Office and nothing else on it.

Even if the entire FOSS community decided to adopt a patent termination clause right now, it cannot retroactively apply to whatever fragments of FOSS code that has found its way into proprietary products so far. So I'm safe as long I don't install any new software until I'm done trollin'.

Your idea would make sense If all the FOSS that was ever written came with a patent termination clause. But that's not the world we live in.

Re: Explaining React's license

#203
post #149

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…

I've read it, and I'm pretty sure it says that if you initiate a patent lawsuit against Facebook, you lose the license to use React at all. It doesn't revert to BSD. (EDIT: Apparently that's wrong although the license could certainly be more clear about it.) If React doesn't implement any of their patents, the patent clause offers nothing extra. If it does, it would be damned nice to know which one(s) . Do other libr…

It's deeper than that.

Say you are a company A, and have product P that uses react.

You find out that company B infringed on a patent in your other product Q.

You sue B.

It turns out B is owned by FB.

Your product P is in trouble.

Re: Explaining React's license

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's the problem, it isn't intuitive at first as to how one should add routing when using React. I learned React-Router, but the API has changed a lot between versions in the past.

Re: Explaining React's license

#205
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the fact that if you sue Facebook for any patent infringement, even a legitimate one (say, you're the creator of some new hardware), Facebook will revoke your React license. Also, Facebook has no vdom patent. It's not like you can be granted a secret, hidden patent (even the word "patent" itself means "open").

> You're missing the fact that if you sue Facebook for any patent infringement, even a legitimate one (say, you're the creator of some new hardware), Facebook will revoke your React license. Incorrect. (This has been clarified many times, including in Facebook's official FAQ about React licensing.) > Also, Facebook has no vdom patent. It's not like you can be granted a secret, hidden patent (even the word "patent" it…

Do you mean this one? https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

It doesn't address the scenario of Facebook's violating your patents first.

Re: Explaining React's license

#206
This is the kind of thing that makes devs start new projects that look really close to projects that run this course. You know, just to spite this act.

Re: Explaining React's license

#207
post #81

Facebook's position on this is weird. Any company that wants to use react and avoid liability arising from Facebook's terms can do so easily by incorporating a subsidiary or wholly separate company and paying that company $1 to license the UI built on react. Maybe this is about fencing off Google/Amazon/Alibaba/etc who might be reluctant to do something that would be technically legal but something that a jury might…

Unfortunately the wording covers a subsidiary, agents act on behalf and any interest including financial even in an indirect way.

Since Facebook grants a license, the worst case scenario is you sue Facebook for infringing your "X" patent, and then they search your website and find a react ui, and then you say oh we bought that off WebKidCo. IANAL but it seems farfetched that a court could/would hold a company bound to such a broad clause for what it's supplier(s) did. Or you could just sue Facebook for using your patent "X" after having first moved the patent into a non practicing entity.

Re: Explaining React's license

#208

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…

I remember sitting in the front row at ngEurope (Angular conf) back in 2014, when Misko announced that Angular 2 would be a (breaking) API rewrite vs Angular 1. At that time, Angular was perhaps at its global maximum of community mind share—bigger than React!—and its popularity began to sink afterwards in large part due to that PR snafu.

I wonder if this is React's "Angular 2." What's worse, the misstep this time is due to ham-fisted corporate mal- stewardship, not just miscommunicated technical good intentions. Vue is similarly positioned to be the "next thing" in the way React was three years ago. My how this space churns.

Re: Explaining React's license

#209

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…

To your second point, wouldn't there be a tremendous amount of startups who aren't interested in being in the patents business, or that would otherwise not own the patents over which to sue Facebook, that would thus not be able to get into this position, or did I just completely misunderstand the issue?

Investors seem to be really fond of patentable or protectable technology. Lets say a start up comes up with a really clever and novel way to accurately predict what kind of a cake a person likes best. If they built a platform in React and then Facebook stole the idea - they couldn't sue Facebook (or any Facebook subsidiaries) without immediately revoking the ability to use React.

This isn't only covering Facebook - this covers subsidiaries or subsidiaries etc..

Re: Explaining React's license

#210
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read it, and I'm pretty sure it says that if you initiate a patent lawsuit against Facebook, you lose the license to use React at all. It doesn't revert to BSD. (EDIT: Apparently that's wrong although the license could certainly be more clear about it.) If React doesn't implement any of their patents, the patent clause offers nothing extra. If it does, it would be damned nice to know which one(s) . Do other libr…

It's deeper than that. Say you are a company A, and have product P that uses react. You find out that company B infringed on a patent in your other product Q. You sue B. It turns out B is owned by FB. Your product P is in trouble.

"If you are OK with using MIT or BSD licensed software you should be OK with using Facebook's BSD + Patents software." (From GP)

I.e. patent grant nullifies, and you are left with a BSD only license.

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