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On React and WordPress

ma.tt

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Re: On React and WordPress

#161

Post by twiddo »

notacoward wrote: post #137
Illniyar wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two camps - those who believe that an open source license implicitly provides patent grants and those who believe an open source license does not allow patent use. 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 t…

> The patent grant is also worded a bit unclearly It's not unclear at all. Here's the file. Note that it's separate from the LICENSE file that grants a copyright license. https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS > The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, ... There is no reasonable logical or legal context in which "hereunder" refers to anything except the PATENTS fi…

The PATENTS file refers to all patents granted to you by Facebook in any project, not just in React (or any of the other files containing the PATENTS file). I think it's scoped a lot more broadly than you seem to imply.

Re: On React and WordPress

#162

Post by notacoward »

Flenser wrote: post #154
notacoward wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think DannyBee is simply wrong that the explicit grant extinguishes the implicit one, and I've seen plenty of real lawyers agree. The copyright license and the patent license (LICENSE and PATENTS respectively) are separate contracts and even address separate areas of law. The legal principle involved here is that the permissions granted under LICENSE may not be unilaterally withdrawn except for reasons specified in…

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I think where you and DannyBee differ is with: "permissions granted under LICENSE may not be unilaterally withdrawn except for reasons specified in that document itself" where DannyBee is not taking the patent licence to be a permission that can be implicitly granted under LICENCE when there is a separate explicit PATENTS grant. He states in the followup comment "No license can b…

I think that's fair; thank you. I still think it's untrue that an explicit license extinguishes an implicit one. Consider the two-explicit case. Let's say you and I have two separate contracts, both of which grant me the right to cross your land. If one of those contracts completes or is terminated, does that mean I can't cross your land any more? That would be even crazier than lawyers usually are. I'd still have that right under the other separate contract.

Now, why would it be any different if one of those grants is implicit? Again, that would be even crazier, etc. Allowing contracts to interfere with each other like that (in this case the copyright license being affected by a patent issue) would make contract law even more of a nightmare than it is already. I strongly believe courts would reject that not only for the sake of logic or justice but out of sheer self-preservation.

Of course, we're all speculating until this exact issue is tested in court. I just think the people assuming the same as DannyBee are leaping toward the least sane and least likely conclusion, and asking others to do the same.

Re: On React and WordPress

#163

Post by notacoward »

twiddo wrote: post #161
notacoward wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The patent grant is also worded a bit unclearly It's not unclear at all. Here's the file. Note that it's separate from the LICENSE file that grants a copyright license. https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS > The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, ... There is no reasonable logical or legal context in which "hereunder" refers to anything except the PATENTS fi…

The PATENTS file refers to all patents granted to you by Facebook in any project, not just in React (or any of the other files containing the PATENTS file). I think it's scoped a lot more broadly than you seem to imply.

It refers to all patents as potential triggers, not as potential consequences, and that still doesn't allow a patent license to nullify a separate copyright license. I think it's scoped a lot more narrowly than you are trying to imply. I've provided detailed reasoning for my position. Feel free to reciprocate.

Re: On React and WordPress

#164

Post by [deleted] »

jeswin wrote: post #123
bodegajed wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So let's see. 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…

[deleted]

Re: On React and WordPress

#165

Post by mkohlmyr »

A lot of people here are projecting their dislike of software patents onto this whole issue which is a big mistake.

IANAL but I don't see anywhere in the PATENTS file where it restricts this issue to software patents. In fact it explicitly talks about any software, technology, product or service.

That means you essentially can't sue them over any patent ever. Not just software.

With Facebooks history of "liberal borrowing" when it comes to product, it would be prudent to assume this same strategy might be applied to non-software products and services.

I completely understand why WordPress is doing this. It makes a ton of sense. WordPress powers some ridiculous percentage of the web. They are doing The Right Thing (tm) by not stopping every single one of those users from bringing a patent complaint against Facebook. Software or otherwise.

Re: On React and WordPress

#166

Post by efdee »

K0nserv wrote: post #110
Flenser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "termination on any action against Facebook", the termination is only for: 1. filing a patent infringement against Facebook (for anything, related or unrelated to React) 2. filing a patent infringement counterclaim against Facebook for patents related to React (after Facebook have first filed a patent infringement claim against you for patents on anything) 3. filing a patent infringement against anyone for p…

> You can take action against them, you just don't have a patent grant once you do. Which opens you up to being countered-sued right? It seems that this leaves Facebook to freely infringe on any patents of React users without consequence.

Not without consequence. You as a company will have to determine which is more of a problem: Facebook using your patents, or you using Facebook's patents.

Re: On React and WordPress

#167

Post by twiddo »

notacoward wrote: post #163
twiddo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PATENTS file refers to all patents granted to you by Facebook in any project, not just in React (or any of the other files containing the PATENTS file). I think it's scoped a lot more broadly than you seem to imply.

It refers to all patents as potential triggers, not as potential consequences, and that still doesn't allow a patent license to nullify a separate copyright license. I think it's scoped a lot more narrowly than you are trying to imply. I've provided detailed reasoning for my position. Feel free to reciprocate.

Suing Facebook for an unrelated patent will make any software you use that may only work with ANY Facebook patented works useless. It doesn't discriminate to this project. They retain first strike however, so all the people saying this is great because patent litigation is bad, Facebook still has first-strike here.

Also, the copyright license isn't useful unless you have complete knowledge of Facebook's patent portfolio and are certain that without a patent grant (implicit/explicit) you can still use the software at all. This goes for Facebook as well as immutable, graphql etc.

> ... 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 ...

This amounts to a sprawling amount of individuals/orgs that can make you rewrite everything.

Re: On React and WordPress

#168

Post by carussell »

pluma wrote: post #86
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.

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

Let's suppose that the set of Facebook's patents were known. The size of that set is large enough that if someone wanted to validate the claim that Facebook has no patents on React, it would be a massive undertaking—perhaps several man years, even. Not that this really makes a difference.

Facebook has thousands of patents with their name on them. They have thousands more where Facebook's name would not appear, because they control the patents through acquisitions and cross-licensing deals, which means the size of the set of Facebook's patents on any given technology is unknowable. We're basically running into the equivalent of the halting problem as applied to the world of IP—which has always been the crux case against software patents—it doesn't matter how diligent you are, because there's always the risk of being submarined.

So I don't know where this idea comes from that Facebook has no patents covering React. I keep seeing it repeated, and yet it seems to have been derived from nothing more than the same comments I saw early in the conversation about React probably not being covered—in which case, those comments are a terrible thing to base your understanding on, because I know those were just generic, off-the-cuff, probably underinformed speculation no different from 90% of the comments in any other thread about licensing.

Re: On React and WordPress

#169

Post by twiddo »

This is not an appropriate vector to 'fix' patent law. If you want to fix software patents, it should happen across the board and not by companies selectively weaponizing their projects and polluting the whole ecosystem in the veil of open source contributions.

Re: On React and WordPress

#170

Post by carussell »

egeozcan wrote: post #106
mbrock wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works. The patents file does not take away any rights or impose any obligations. You already have a license to use the React software, because it comes with a BSD license. The patents file is an additional grant of rights. Specifically, the right to immunity against Facebook patents related to React, unless you have yourself initiated a patent lawsuit against Facebook. The Apache License and the Moz…

Oh I see. Thanks for the detailed explanation. Just have these questions: Without that patents file and the rights granted within, could Facebook theoretically sue you for infringing their patents by using their own open-source software? If not, what's the raison d'être for such a grant?

> could Facebook theoretically sue you for infringing their patents by using their own open-source software

Yes, but only because the question "can X sue you for Y" is true for any X and Y. Licenses can't protect you from being sued; the only thing they can offer protection from is someone else winning a suit against you.

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