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On React and WordPress

ma.tt

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Re: On React and WordPress

#11

Post by taternuts »

hdra wrote: post #5
ryanswapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and lou…

Why not Preact? It seems the react compatibility would be very helpful when they already have such a significant investment into react.

Could potentially do both interchangeably soon: https://twitter.com/_developit/status/898952382960119808

Re: On React and WordPress

#12

Post by sheeshkebab »

It's getting hard to recommend React when the company controlling it clearly has threatening licensing ideas.

Better use something else open source or just pay a license fee to someone for a clearly licensed commercial framework.

Re: On React and WordPress

#13

Post by coldtea »

CharlesW wrote: post #4

> As our general counsel wrote, we made the decision that we'd never run into the patent issue. That is still true today as it was then, and overall, we’ve been really happy with React. Okay. > …I'm here to say that the Gutenberg team is going to take a step back and rewrite Gutenberg using a different library. Am I the only one missing the "why"? > …passing down to our users. Is that the "why"? If so, what does he m…

>Is that the "why"? If so, what does he mean by it? Meaning: What is the "danger" that Matt says Automattic will never run into, but that WordPress users will run into?

He answered that already. He doesn't believe there's much (if any) danger, but:

"we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook’s patent clause is fine isn’t ours to take on. It’s their fight".

So what they don't want to "pass down to [their] users" is not something they believe is an actual danger, but the anxiety about the licensing that users would face and the arguments etc that will erupt over this.

Re: On React and WordPress

#14

Post by chrisco255 »

hdra wrote: post #5
ryanswapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and lou…

Why not Preact? It seems the react compatibility would be very helpful when they already have such a significant investment into react.

That would explain the short time frame quoted for the rewrite.

Re: On React and WordPress

#16

Post by cygned »

Too bad I wasn't able to setup Hot Module Reloading yet, otherwise I'd switched to Preact. Not because I am concerned of the license itself, but because we are heading towards an acquisition exit and I don't want that to be a factor - who knows, where we're at in like five years?

Re: On React and WordPress

#17

Post by morgante »

hdra wrote: post #5
ryanswapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and lou…

Why not Preact? It seems the react compatibility would be very helpful when they already have such a significant investment into react.

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that any Facebook patents you use with React wouldn't also apply to Preact.

Then again, I think this whole patents issue is mostly FUD. The number of companies who have to reasonably consider suing Facebook for patent infringement is small and they know who they are.

Re: On React and WordPress

#18

Post by ryanswapp »

hdra wrote: post #5
ryanswapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and lou…

Why not Preact? It seems the react compatibility would be very helpful when they already have such a significant investment into react.

That's true. I wonder if they'd steer clear of Preact just because it is similar to React though? Also, Preact seems to be heavily reliant on the React ecosystem and it wouldn't be much of a rage quit if they picked up the skinnier version of React when that is what they should be doing anyways because... you know... bandwidth.

Re: On React and WordPress

#19

Post by dangoor »

hoodoof wrote: post #10

>> rewrite Gutenberg using a different library. It will likely delay Gutenberg at least a few weeks I love this. How many times in my career have I heard "the rewrite will take us ". Good luck with that estimate.

This is plausible because there are quite a few libraries that have adopted React's model and some have even adopted React's API (Preact).

Of course, they could still get sued for patent infringement if Facebook has patents covering certain aspects of React (which, ironically, they wouldn't be under the React license).

Re: On React and WordPress

#20

Post by dangoor »

cvsh wrote: post #9
ljoshua wrote: post #2

It's too bad that this particular point has become an issue with so many good open source projects. I still think that the risk, even for startups considering acquisition exits, is low (see this great post from a patent/IP attorney [1]), but the fact that it's enough to cause players like the ASF and WordPress to move away from it just means fewer players and less innovation in the ecosystem. IANAL, but I wish the la…

Matt is a copyleft zealot. Of course he'd drop React over this non-controversy. Anyone paying attention to how he views GPL would come to that conclusion.

That's honestly not how I read this blog post at all. He came right out and said that they didn't see the patent clause being an issue, but they want Facebook to make that argument and not them.
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