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My take on all this is Facebook's legal team seems to be sending a message to the open source community that they should come for the ideas, but wait for a truly open source alternative to come out before using those ideas in their own products.
Help me on this: Facebook has just removed the PATENTS file from GraphQL repository, and now there are issues for this? And at the same time people are arguing over removing it from React? This is madness…
What? They haven't... https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS
The graphql repo is the specification for GraphQL. There has never been a PATENTS file in that repo or any mention of patents:
https://github.com/facebook/graphql/search?q=patents&type=Co...
See DannyBee's post for why a patent grant for a specification is different from software:
This GitHub issue is almost three weeks old and without any formal answer. At the very least, Facebook doesn't care about solving the problem, which is almost as bad as having malevolent plans to use these GraphQL patents.
> At the very least, Facebook doesn't > care about solving the problem This attitude isn't in the least bit helpful. It's been escalated to their legal council and the maintainer has said many many times that he's chasing it.
Can anyone point me to a single instance where anything bad has actually happened because of Facebook's patent clause in one of their open source libraries?
It's a ticking bomb. You don't control what Facebook do or won't do and it's enough for lawyers to freak out. You can't know what would happen if Zuckerberg is replaced (accidents happen) and corporate water-heads take over Facebook.
Can anyone point me to a single instance where anything bad has actually happened because of Facebook's patent clause in one of their open source libraries?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So React is damned for including a PATENTS license A patent grant is a good thing, you want a patent grant as a user of OSS. The problem people have with React's patent grant is the one sided terms of the patent grant (and the fear that Facebook could hold you hostage with those terms). > Geez, wish they would just re-license under Apache 2.0. This would be my preference. IMO, for the React issue, even if the issue…
Unfortunately that logic seems to lead to a strategy of FUD in the direction of a different patent license, which if that approach is validated then leads to being less open doesn't it?
If Microsoft and Broadcom are better OSS+patents citizens then you are, you have a serious problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You use React or GraphQL on any project at your company, and suddenly Facebook gets free reign to use ANY IP your company claims? That's the definition of toxic.
No. How did you manage to get that interpretation?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even the companies who file the patents claim they don't want the patents.
No, they have to do it as a defensive measure. It sucks, but companies like RedHat do it all the time.
No false equivalence should be made here. Facebook needs and deserves to be called out over it as much as possible.
My take on all this is Facebook's legal team seems to be sending a message to the open source community that they should come for the ideas, but wait for a truly open source alternative to come out before using those ideas in their own products.
But if you are using ideas from their software, you are infringing patents too.
Just out of curiosity though, has this sort of backdoor patent infringement actually been tested in court?
IANAL, let alone a bitter twisted IP lawyer, but it seems perfectly reasonable to infer relevant patent licenses from an open source contribution. "Hey here's a free meal, but you better not eat it or we'll sue!" Sticky stuff.