Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On React and WordPress

ma.tt

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 212 posts

Re: On React and WordPress

#51

Post by tdb7893 »

morgante wrote: post #17
hdra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I feel like there is practical worth in drawing a line in the sand, though. If all open source libraries had this then using open source would essentially mean you can't sue the big corporations (or having to go through some very lengthy and very expensive expensive engineering if you do). I think that outcome is bad for the industry as a whole and bad for open source in general and it's better to fight now than have to fight it when it's more established.

Re: On React and WordPress

#52

Post by koko775 »

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.

How does that protect anyone? Any patents covering React would probably cover Preact.

Re: On React and WordPress

#54

Post by Gaelan »

thristian wrote: post #41
morgante wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My understanding is that you lose access to React if you sue Facebook over any patents at all, not just ones that may be relative to React.

You don't lose access to React. You lose access to any patents in React, but not the copyright. We don't even know of any React patents, so for all we know the entire document does nothing.

Re: On React and WordPress

#56

Post by invaliduser »

morgante wrote: post #17
hdra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The facebook patent clause states that you lose the licence rights to use react if you sue facebook against any patent infringement (for patents you own).

There is nothing in that saying that they have patents on react, and if they have patent covering, it very likely covers very much more than just react (because of the generic way patents are filed).

«The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent Assertion» see https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS

Re: On React and WordPress

#57

Post by majormajor »

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 seems like a fine thing to do as a "send a message" type thing, but doesn't seem to help patent wise?

Am I misunderstanding the flow?

1) Facebook has patents on some stuff React does. 2) (Assumption) Anything similar enough to be near-source-compatible probably runs a big risk of exposure to those same patents. 3) React is licensed in a way that you can use it without opening yourself up to patent litigation (it grants license to them). 4) Facebook infringes on some more-critical-to-your-business thing. 5) You sue. 6) Facebook sues you for using React (or Preact, from (2)?).

If you never use React you never get that patent license anyway, right? So be careful how distinct your replacement is. You'd need to analyze the claims of the patents you're worried about to see if they could still apply.

This guy seems to think the same ( https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok... ) but also doesn't feel like Facebook would ever use it, though that's not really relevant to the arguments made around the principal here.

Re: On React and WordPress

#58

Post by [deleted] »

yawaramin wrote: post #38
mox1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the blog post? His main concern is suddenly updating ~25% of all websites to "include" the React license. Imagine Microsoft running a small WordPress site off in the distance somewhere that takes the Wordpress + React update. Tadaa, MS is now in theory bound by the FB patent clause. He doesn't want to be responsible for the potential legal liability of encumbering 25% of the internet with a new license a…

Microsoft is already using React in public-facing stuff.

[deleted]

Re: On React and WordPress

#59

Post by peterhunt »

majormajor wrote: post #57
hdra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That seems like a fine thing to do as a "send a message" type thing, but doesn't seem to help patent wise? Am I misunderstanding the flow? 1) Facebook has patents on some stuff React does. 2) (Assumption) Anything similar enough to be near-source-compatible probably runs a big risk of exposure to those same patents. 3) React is licensed in a way that you can use it without opening yourself up to patent litigation (it…

This is sort of correct, but what you need to understand is by simply putting something on the web you're probably "violating" dozens of patents held by multiple big scary corporations. The big difference here is that FB has specifically described the patent grant, while most open-source projects leave it ambiguous.
Post reply on HN