121–130 of 212 posts
The last time the PATENTS file was changed was 3 years ago. It has passed the smell test for Microsoft (and dozens of other large companies) with literal buildings full of attorneys who have more experience with licenses, patents and everything between then most. This issue seems to be a bunch of nothing. What am I missing here?
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…
> baseless and meritless Are you expert in patent law for you to come up with that conclusion though? I you're not a lawyer then your assumption that it's a perfectly OK patent grant is baseless and meritless as well.
...as would any non-lawyer's claim otherwise. Do you call them out the same way, or are you selective about where you apply that rule?
In actual fact, it only takes a tiny bit of familiarity with patent law to see that a revocable grant can't be worse than no grant at all. Many engineers have such familiarity. If you haven't triggered the revocation clause in the PATENTS file, you're strictly better off than with plain BSD, because you have all the rights you would have had before while Facebook will have given up the right to sue you first (for patent issues related to your use of React). If you have triggered that revocation clause, you're exactly where plain BSD would have put you to begin with. So you're either better off or exactly equal. Never worse. Anyone who claims otherwise either hasn't actually read the PATENTS file, doesn't have even minimal familiarity with how the law works, or is spreading FUD.
People who ridicule the notion of FUD causing actual harm, pay attention: this is a perfect example of the chilling effects of FUD on software projects. Automattic didn't drop React because it doesn't like the license. Automattic dropped React because the FUD surrounding React's license might rub off on them (and WordPress). It's their right to do so and it's in the best interest of WordPress to avoid being dragged i…
Comfort can hurt. Automattic is not comfortable with the Facebook license and you say it like it's a baseless FUD but even if they get a 1% chance of going to court against Facebook then they rather not take that risk of litigation anytime in the future. It's a business decision for the long term as rewriting doesn't cost that much for them.
1. Possibility of Automattic attacking FB with patents = 0%. (No issues here with React)
2. Possibility of FB attacking Automattic with patents (No issues here; Patent grant doesn't get revoked for countersuing).
3. Wordpress end users getting attacked by FaceBook (Again no issues here, grant doesn't get revoked for countersuing).
4. Wordpress end users planning to use software patents against FB - The guys who actually have a problem.
So basically, the FUD helped individuals/trolls/companies who want to wield software patents as a weapon; to the detriment of the wider community which sees software patents as evil.
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…
> On a side note - I'll bet WordPress get's rewritten in Vue.js Seems like a good bet. Developers discussing the matter... https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/2733
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.
This "adds risk" argument is very familiar from other FUD campaigns (e.g. Microsoft's) against open source in general. It's pretty weird to see people who claim to believe in open source pushing arguments that work against most open source.
People who ridicule the notion of FUD causing actual harm, pay attention: this is a perfect example of the chilling effects of FUD on software projects. Automattic didn't drop React because it doesn't like the license. Automattic dropped React because the FUD surrounding React's license might rub off on them (and WordPress). It's their right to do so and it's in the best interest of WordPress to avoid being dragged i…
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.
I don't understand this: how are you not strictly better off with the patent grant? This whole fiasco seems to be nothing but FUD. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14780979 tl;dr: License with no patent grant: Facebook can sue you for infringing patents, even if you are using a clone! License with patent grant: Facebook cannot sue you for infringing patents, unless you do it first.
Until such a thing is tested in court (in each country) both ideas have merit.
The patent grant is also worded a bit unclearly - implying that if you sue facebook you will lose the copyright, not only the patent right, to use React.
Even though the lawyers clarified it in FAQ and other places, the wording is still what it is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 al…
> nobody has found any patents filed by Facebook that would actually cover any part of React, Somebody on /r/ posted this[0]. [0]: https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242
I just read it. I can't believe this patent was granted. If I'm reading it correctly, it's a patent for an old trick used by every OS and video game ever made. Basically, don't redraw things that aren't in view, and only redraw the bits of things that are in view.
Anyway, I can't see how this is applicable to React, as it really isn't how the v-dom works at all. The v-dom isn't about failing to draw clipped items. The v-dom is about diffing two trees and only updating changed items.
Am I totally off base here?
Just a few weeks? Is it that trivial to swap out a library?
People who ridicule the notion of FUD causing actual harm, pay attention: this is a perfect example of the chilling effects of FUD on software projects. Automattic didn't drop React because it doesn't like the license. Automattic dropped React because the FUD surrounding React's license might rub off on them (and WordPress). It's their right to do so and it's in the best interest of WordPress to avoid being dragged i…
The term "FUD" is typically used to denote " unreasonable " or " unfounded " fear/uncertainty/doubt. I'm not sure that it applies to situations where doubt is NOT unreasonable.