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Explaining React's license

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Re: Explaining React's license

#311

Post by weinzierl »

carussell wrote: post #116
jasonkostempski wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> be a win for free/open source software Any project with such a license would be non-free, so I'm not sure how that would be a win for free software.

> such a license would be non-free I'm inclined to say you're mistaken. The FSF hasn't published an analysis of the React terms, but if they did, it seems pretty much assured that they'd deem it a "free software license, but incompatible with the GPL". Recall that Apache 2.0, MPL2, and GPLv3—all free software licenses—have patent termination clauses as well, but they're comparatively weak. In fact, GPLv2 didn't have…

>> such a license would be non-free

> I'm inclined to say you're mistaken. The FSF hasn't published an analysis of the React terms, but if they did, it seems pretty much assured that they'd deem it a "free software license, but incompatible with the GPL".

Richard Stallman said it is non-free [1]:

> React.js is nonfree because of its patent license restriction.

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

Re: Explaining React's license

#312

Post by Steeeve »

web007 wrote: post #133

I don't understand ASF's position on this. How is FB-BSD+P different from CDDL 1.1, which includes section 6.2 regarding termination of patent rights in the event of a suit?

ASF's license limits it's scope. ASF software cannot carry dependencies on licenses that have wider scope than their license. In addition to the scope, the FB license is very one-sided.

As such, ASF decided to disallow FB licensed dependencies. One particular ASF project did not have an alternative, so they asked FB to re-license. FB agreed to do so.

Because it was easy, and because the positive talk surrounding FB's license seemed to intimate that FB's intention was the same as ASF's license intention, they requested FB to relicense react so that it too could be included as a dependency on ASF projects.

Faced with making a decision, FB determined that their licensing strategy associated with litigation was more important than their ability to be included in ASF projects.

A lot of eyes were watching the request, many hopeful that the FB decision would justify and clarify their interpretation of the FB license and it's intentions. FB disappointed them though, and basically said "bugger off if you don't like it. We'll lose people, but we don't think it will be that many."

Judging from this discussion - and the fact that HN is one of the most pro-react communities around - this decision will not play out kindly and could be the death-knell of react's position as a major force in UI development.

Re: Explaining React's license

#313

Post by rockdoe »

antoncohen wrote: post #154
hajile wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have implicit patent grants while Facebook's does not. http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

I don't see how that changes anything. If you sue Facebook you lose the explicit patent grant, but you are still left with a BSD license that allows "redistribution and use in source and binary forms", so you still have the implicit patent grant.

This doesn't work if there's an explicit grant. You can't pretend the PATENTS file isn't there.

Re: Explaining React's license

#315

Post by rockdoe »

chrisco255 wrote: post #242
rsgrafx wrote: post #231

What advice would you say to someone who just who's only about 6 months in ( learning React ) ? A. Its not been that long.. walk away and learn something else. B. If you've put in the time try to get something out of it. C. I don't know what the whole fuss is about your not going to be building anything worth facebook's time anyway.

If this is for your own personal projects or your startup...you should just keep using React. Seriously, unless you've got millions of dollars to bring a patent suit against Facebook (do you even have any patents to defend?), this should not even be on your radar. You should be focused on building great product and execution: not patent litigation.

Don't ever hope of selling your business if it takes off though. The above may not apply to your potential buyers.

Re: Explaining React's license

#316

Post by IanKelling »

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…

> if a project's license is radioactive

It's not a copyright license. It's a patent grant/license which is completely independent. This matters for several reasons, including when just saying "license", this usually means a copyright license.

If this patent grant get's revoked, you are back to simply using the BSD license with no patent grant. I've read so many people say "you'd have to stop using react if you sued facebook", uh, no, you'd have a bsd license with no patent grant like you probably do with tons of other free software your company uses. Clearly, people should be complaining about that if they are complaining about this, but the misunderstanding and misinformation is really strong. If you believe software patents are universally bad, like many people including me, then it is clearly better using the MIT/BSD license alone, which gives you zero patent rights, you are simply infringing and waiting to be sued. I have no problem with it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html.

Re: Explaining React's license

#317

Post by IanKelling »

Scaevolus wrote: post #220

Almost all of Facebook's "open source" code has the same PATENTS file, which makes them toxic if you can imagine a future where Facebook infringes one of your patents: https://github.com/search?p=5&q=org%3Afacebook+filename%3APA... This includes things far outside the React ecosystem: - Flow (JS type checker, like TypeScript) - prepack (JS optimizing transpiler) - a bunch of Android/iOS UI/debugging frameworks, - all…

> I am frustrated with software with trivially incompatible licenses.

It's not a copyright license, and it's not incompatible with any other free software license. I'm frustrated with the misinformation spread about it.

If this patent license/grant get's revoked, you are back to simply using the BSD license with no patent grant. I've read so many people say "you'd have to stop using react if you sued facebook", uh, no, you'd have a bsd license with no patent grant like you probably do with tons of other free software your company uses. Clearly, people should be complaining about that if they are complaining about this, but the misunderstanding and misinformation is really strong. If you believe software patents are universally bad, like many people including me, then it is clearly better using the MIT/BSD license alone, which gives you zero patent rights, you are simply infringing and waiting to be sued. I have no problem with it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html.

Re: Explaining React's license

#318

Post by rockdoe »

eugeneionesco wrote: post #279
JoshMnem wrote: post #223

I'm not sure if React (and the other projects that contain the PATENTS file) will survive the backlash to this in the long run. Vue.js is rapidly climbing in popularity, and Elm is probably going to go mainstream in 2018. There are alternatives like Mithril and Ember too.

This such a non-issue and affects very small part of those that use React it won't affect the popularity at all.

This is true if only because sane people aren't using React exactly because of this issue.

Re: Explaining React's license

#319

Post by rockdoe »

itsbits wrote: post #191

I am no pro in understanding these licensing issue. Can someone help me how this affects if i) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for their proprietor software? ii) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for their distributed licensing software? iii) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for a software which is opensourced?

If you use React you basically can't sue Facebook for infringing your patents, so it is giving them a free pass on your IP.

Re: Explaining React's license

#320

Post by dcposch »

stephen82 wrote: post #157
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…

Well, I planned to learn more about React, but reading now this convinced me to learn Vue.js instead. It's under MIT license developed by a single person in addition to community's contribution. This link is rather interesting https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/comparison.html#React

Check out Preact. It's an API compatible, lightweight React alternative that is actual free software.

As a bonus, it's a lot smaller, just 3kb minified

https://preactjs.com/

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