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Startups should not use React

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Re: Startups should not use React

#31

Post by BukhariH »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #27
anilgulecha wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is if you ever found facebook infringing on one of your patents, you could not sue them -- your react patent grant would be rescinded. This is not a behavior of free software.

This is the same BS repeated on HN almost every day now. You can sue FB anytime, whether you use React or not. You do not give them any kind of permission to use YOUR patents just by using React. The only thing that happens when you sue FB over patents is that your patent grant covering React is gone, reducing your license to a regular BSD license. If you use Angular, vue or whatnot open source products covered by li…

Wait... I live in the EU aswell (UK).

What do you mean by:

"Gosh, I am so happy to live in the EU where we do not have to deal with this kind of BS and can just use the best technology that solves the problem."

Re: Startups should not use React

#32

Post by chaostheory »

thomyorkie wrote: post #7

> If all giants agreed to open source under the “BSD + patents” scheme, cross-adoption would grind to a halt. Why? If Google released Project X under “BSD + Patents”, and Amazon really liked it, rather than adopting it and losing their right to ever sue Google for patents, they would go off and build it on their own. This seems like a reasonable argument, but it doesn't seem to have deterred several big name companie…

Developers are not lawyers, and developers and lawyers don't talk to each other all the time. I wonder how many of those companies even bothered to check the license, given how fast they have to move? I've been guilty of that as well in the past.

Re: Startups should not use React

#33

Post by sirclueless »

chrisco255 wrote: post #22
sheetjs wrote: post #15

There was a time when React was Apache v2! https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/3bbed150ab58a07b0c4fa... shows that license. Has anyone seriously explored forking React from the last Apache v2 version?

If they published React under Apache v2 at one point in time, how can they later re-release under a new license and claim patent rights on it then? Since, assuming whatever patents they own covered this version of React as well...wouldn't that be considered prior art?

I don't understand this argument. They are the owners of the patents in question. That gives them a limited monopoly on the rights to use those patents, and can create any number of products using the patents, and offer them to you under any number of licenses.

Facebook re-licensing React doesn't create prior art, any more than an inventor manufacturing a new product using a patent they own would create prior art.

Re: Startups should not use React

#34

Post by fstephany »

BukhariH wrote: post #31
littlecranky67 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same BS repeated on HN almost every day now. You can sue FB anytime, whether you use React or not. You do not give them any kind of permission to use YOUR patents just by using React. The only thing that happens when you sue FB over patents is that your patent grant covering React is gone, reducing your license to a regular BSD license. If you use Angular, vue or whatnot open source products covered by li…

Wait... I live in the EU aswell (UK). What do you mean by: "Gosh, I am so happy to live in the EU where we do not have to deal with this kind of BS and can just use the best technology that solves the problem."

Software Patenting theoretically does not exist in the EU[1]. But in practice I guess it's up to the interpretation of the law by national courts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...

Re: Startups should not use React

#35

Post by kybernetikos »

k__ wrote: post #19
notaboutdave wrote: post #8

Easy workaround: Install Preact. No code changes required, at least not for me last year.

even the creator of preact said he doesn't know if he infringed FB patents with the creation of preact, because nobody knows what React covering patents FB holds.

And in this, the situation is exactly the same as with any front end library, or even not using one at all. It's almost impossible to know if you're infringing any patents.

Re: Startups should not use React

#36

Post by anilgulecha »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #27
anilgulecha wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is if you ever found facebook infringing on one of your patents, you could not sue them -- your react patent grant would be rescinded. This is not a behavior of free software.

This is the same BS repeated on HN almost every day now. You can sue FB anytime, whether you use React or not. You do not give them any kind of permission to use YOUR patents just by using React. The only thing that happens when you sue FB over patents is that your patent grant covering React is gone, reducing your license to a regular BSD license. If you use Angular, vue or whatnot open source products covered by li…

You're responding to something I never claimed.

My only point was Free Software (in spirit) does not take away (patent)rights once they've been granted.

Re: Startups should not use React

#37

Post by yozel »

BukhariH wrote: post #29
binaryapparatus wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand that license correctly, it is not 'patents that cover react', it is 'any facebook patent, present or future'. Also as explained in the article, it is also about my patents if I have any, in case facebook tries violating them. Far wider than 'react patents'.

I understand that but here's the scenario I'm talking about: - I use React for my startup's dashboard - I sue facebook for violating my startup's patent without removing my react dashboard first Now, what patents can facebook use to counter sue me that they couldn't sue me with anyway had I not used react?

Facebook won't counter sue you. They don't have to. You just lose your right to use React, due to its license.

Re: Startups should not use React

#38

Post by kybernetikos »

hoodoof wrote: post #16

"Look, we were going to buy you for $500million but our thorough due diligence has turned over a rather nasty stone that you probably wished we didn't look under. You know what I mean don't you? YES - we found out your dirty little secret that you're using ReactJS. Due to this, we have decided to pull the deal in favor of your competitor who uses AngularJS. What you need to understand is that although you've cornered…

If you're using angular, you're almost certainly using Typescript which contains this less extreme version of the same sort of patent clause:

3. Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

As I understand it, Angular in general doesn't contain a patent grant at all. Believing that that is superior to a grant that is removed in certain circumstances requires some contentious legal argument that as far as I know has not been demonstrated to stand up in court.

Re: Startups should not use React

#40

Post by imron »

chrisco255 wrote: post #22
sheetjs wrote: post #15

There was a time when React was Apache v2! https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/3bbed150ab58a07b0c4fa... shows that license. Has anyone seriously explored forking React from the last Apache v2 version?

If they published React under Apache v2 at one point in time, how can they later re-release under a new license and claim patent rights on it then? Since, assuming whatever patents they own covered this version of React as well...wouldn't that be considered prior art?

Patent rights != copyright.
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