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Explaining React's license

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Re: Explaining React's license

#611

Post by chrisco255 »

thecrazyone wrote: post #597
arvinsim wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that's the problem. React itself solves a tiny subset and delegates the other responsibilities to different tools which may not align with each other. Most of the is spent is wiring making different choices and wiring them together. So modularity is a problem now?

well there is modularity and then there's keeping frequently used things together. I think react push modularity at the cost of productivity (opinion). It's like breaking a kitchen knife into two: the blade and the handle, in the name of modularity. Concretely, this is what I mean: Routing, and a bunch of other things are used together, it would've been better if react had kept the view library separate but also main…

Routing isn't always necessary, if you're building server rendered pages and a non-SPA web app. Facebook isn't a SPA, so that's why they never built and subsequently released a router. They generally only open source and release things they use in production.

Re: Explaining React's license

#612

Post by chrisco255 »

jnbiche wrote: post #499
Strom wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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've contributed to React before and will continue to do so. I haven't seen a single reason why not to. Just because React doesn't use your favorite license? Well this may shock you but I also use and help develop closed source software. In my view there is nothing morally wron…

> Just because React doesn't use your favorite license? No, that's not the problem for many(most?) of us. The problem is that Facebook has decided to throw out innovative extra conditions to an old and established license. Innovation is typically not a good thing with open source licenses. It just throws a lot of uncertainty and confusion onto the situation, and for what gain? In fact, no one has any clue how this pa…

Because Facebook has been sued, even by big players like Yahoo. If Yahoo sues them for patent infringement, they want to be able to say, yo...what about all that free code we gave you?

Re: Explaining React's license

#614

Post by CodeWriter23 »

pdfernhout wrote: post #513
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. Um, no. Let's say you own patent A and Facebook has granted you rights to patents B and C. Then let's say Facebook infringes your patent A and you sue them. You lose the license to use patents B and C. That's what the PATENTS…

From a lawyer: https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Faceboo... "True, the BSD License does not explicitly state that the licensee receives the right to use the licensed software under the licensor’s patents.* But I’ve never heard any lawyer postulate that that document does not grant a license to fully exploit the licensed software under all of the licensor’s intellectual property. Anyone who pushes t…

The PATENTS file doesn't explicitly state "litigants may continue to use the IP under the BSD license". What it does explicitly say is "litigants lose the patent rights", which in essence serves to revoke the BSD license. Can't have it both ways.

Re: Explaining React's license

#615

Post by mygo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #610
mygo wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the plot. Currently, there is a big philosophical debate on whether OSS licenses like the BSD include an implicit patent grant. When Facebook explicitly includes a revocable patent grant, your argument of the BSD license "with no patent grant" is self-fulfilling. But if the PATENTS file had never existed, then what you have is "a BSD license with a potentially implicit patent grant", which has…

To me it's sort of a toss up between these two scenarios. Implicit grant that has never been tried in court vs explicit grant that only gets revoked if I initiate a patent war?

In both scenarios you have a patent grant before going to court over Patents. The difference is that, in one scenario, you no longer have a patent grant once you go to court. In the other scenario (where PATENTS file never exists), you may still have the patent grant after court.

Re: Explaining React's license

#616

Post by bytesandbots »

> Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Imagine a small company releasing a new js framework with BSD+Patents license. Will FB use ever this framework? No. Because merely using this framework gives this small company the effective freedom to infringe Facebook's patents. Why? Because the cost for FB to shift frameworks will be huge, thus prohibiting FB to sue this small company for patent infringement.

Using a software with BSD+Patents license is almost giving up the right to sue this company. This is dangerously radioactive.

Re: Explaining React's license

#617

Post by Zenbit_UX »

boubiyeah wrote: post #398
kenning wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using polymer as a JS frontend framework wasted about a year of work at my friend's company. They eventually switched to react for one project and an in-house react replacement for the other.

google is pretty bad at frontend frameworks from my experience :D Polymer is an experiment that should have stayed in that state.

I'm guessing you're hating on Angular? Why? I'm a huge fan of 1.x & polymer, but I'm curious to know why you think it is not worth using.

Re: Explaining React's license

#618

Post by Zenbit_UX »

nawitus wrote: post #410
stemuk wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, what I really love about polymer is https://webcomponents.org , basically a collection of webcomponents that can be used either individually or in combination without much setup. This creates great looking results pretty fast and also enables you to easily give back to the community by open-sourcing your own components. Last time I checked already 1100 components were listed, of which the vast majority seemed r…

That's not correct, the Web Component catalog is completely separate from Polymer. Polymer is a library to make it easier to implement web components. You can use Polymer without using any of the community's components.

What did he say that wasn't correct? He said he loves polymer because it gets him access to community made web components.. Made in Polymer...

Re: Explaining React's license

#619

Post by Zenbit_UX »

thecrazyone wrote: post #595
jondubois wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or there is Google's Polymer framework. In my opinion, Polymer is better than React and Vue. I could never bring myself to use React because of its liense terms.

Why not Angular? It's conspicuously missing from these discussions

Super powerful but it's no longer the shinny new penny of front end frameworks. Devs like shinny stuff.

Re: Explaining React's license

#620

Post by Zenbit_UX »

patrickaljord wrote: post #363
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…

Here's a list of companies using React: - Microsoft - Uber - Yahoo Mail - Dropbox - Airbnb - Netflix - NY Times If they're ok with the license, you probably shouldn't worry too much. Basically, if you don't own any patents or if your company is smaller than any of the above, you should be ok.

Source for Microsoft? I once read an article saying that Google, Apple & Microsoft forbade all their developers from even using React due to its licence and this was years ago.
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