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On React and WordPress

ma.tt

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Re: On React and WordPress

#81

Post by samastur »

dilatorily wrote: post #73
samastur wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you are not the one who initiated the patent war? My reading of the license is that you lose Facebook patent grant even if your lawsuit was a response to Facebook's. I am not a fan of (software) patents, but license restrictions are not limited to them either. So what is your recourse if Facebook decides to infringe yours? Assuming this is true (IANAL), would you still feel as comfortable advising com…

IANAL, but you do not lose the patent grant if your lawsuit is in response to Facebook's. https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS#L21-L2...

I somehow missed that part. Thanks.

Re: On React and WordPress

#82

Post by ergo14 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #28

The Drupal community struggled a bit with the decision as well (see https://www.drupal.org/node/2645250 ). It seems there are a number of open source communities and enterprise development shops who are just not comfortable with the patent clause. React had a lot of momentum, but it seems alternatives like Vue.js are going to be the long-term winners in terms of being 'the next jQuery' in terms of longevity as a fron…

The next jquery will be probably Polymer (since it is a library). VueJS/Angular are bigger frameworks.

Re: On React and WordPress

#83

Post by skrebbel »

markyuckerberg wrote: post #71
skrebbel wrote: post #68

Note that WordPress is ditching React not because they believe there's any problem with React's license and patent grant, but because they think their users will be confused and angry . In other words, the baseless and meritless outcry about a perfectly OK patent grant caused this, not the patent grant itself. The subject became taboo, like female nipples in America, and WordPress doesn't want anything to do with the…

>> users will be confused and angry What an ironic statement, considering that that combination can be lethal to a company. Besides, have you ever heard anyone say why they prefer to use Facebook even when they are aware that it is tracking their every move? Usually the answer is "convenience". By the same token, not getting confused or angry is also a great convenience to the user. Very few Wordpress users actually…

I fully agree! I think WordPress made the right move, and I would have done the same in their position. But it's sad that we now have baseless taboos in dev land.

Re: On React and WordPress

#84

Post by kabes »

ramphastidae wrote: post #60

So Calypso, which has been in the works for 2+ years, is going to be completely rewritten?

Completely rewritten is a bit of an overstatement. It depends on what road they choose. They could go with a react-API compatible library and the work should be minor. They could go to angular/vue/... which is more work, but they all work component based, so you can keep the entire structure.

Re: On React and WordPress

#85

Post by nathell »

A candidate I'd consider: Preact. While it doesn't have quite the same support as regular React does, it is touted as having a mostly-compatible API and its license is pure MIT.

Re: On React and WordPress

#86

Post by pluma »

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.

According to the author of Preact, that's unlikely because Preact's implementation is very different (it's not just a cleanroom implementation of the same thing). However I'd be more worried that Facebook might hold patents not limited to React itself.

Considering how arbitrary software patents often are, I would think it equally as likely that they hold patents covering aspects of Angular or Vue as React. I would also think it's equally as likely that Google holds patents covering aspects of React or GraphQL.

As far as I know, unlike GraphQL, nobody has found any patents filed by Facebook that would actually cover any part of React, so right now the patent grant seems to be more of a statement of intent. But expecting you can dodge patent lawsuits by using different technology is absurd. The only way to avoid software patent lawsuits is not to own, deploy or produce software. The only winning move is not to play.

Re: On React and WordPress

#87

Post by pluma »

samastur wrote: post #81
dilatorily wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but you do not lose the patent grant if your lawsuit is in response to Facebook's. https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS#L21-L2...

I somehow missed that part. Thanks.

Most people do, which is half the reason so many people obsess about it.

Re: On React and WordPress

#88

Post by pluma »

kendallpark wrote: post #40
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…

> I'll bet WordPress get's rewritten in Vue.js I had the same thought. If that's the case, it will be a big boost for Vue.

Vue seems the obvious contender but I doubt completely replacing React with Vue this far into development would only cause a delay of a few weeks. Preact or Inferno seem far more likely, considering they won't require massive rewrites.

Re: On React and WordPress

#89

Post by fauigerzigerk »

ellyagg wrote: post #72
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…

> pretty low for many companies C'mon. It's not just pretty low for many companies. It's extremely low for almost all companies. Automattic found it extremely low risk for themselves. If it's not extremely low for almost all companies, then you expect Facebook to initiate patent claims. How soon do you expect to hear that Facebook played offense on them? How many companies do you expect to hear that Facebook threaten…

I would say the risk is extremely low on average, but for any particular startup the odds of having a patent dispute with Facebook are pretty much unknowable.

Facebook is a very large, rapidly evolving and expanding tech conglomerate. We don't know what all their activities will be in the not too distant future.

Facebook is also a public company. We don't know who will control the company in the future and how their strategy will change.

Re: On React and WordPress

#90

Post by Sacho »

Yizahi wrote: post #77
morgante wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patent clause isn't designed to give Facebook leverage. It's designed to grant patents unless you sue them. Even though patent trolls don't use React, Facebook wants to ensure that they don't grant patent licenses to patent trolls. > There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal. If you can provide any direc…

But Facebook can infringe on your patents if they know you have a heavy dependency on React. They won't sue, just infringe. And you won't be able to sue them with zero losses, you will lose at minimum React.

That sounds like a positive, if the end goal is the elimination the abomination of software patents.
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