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Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

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Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#281

Post by wwweston »

dsacco wrote: post #219
damosneeze wrote: post #37

Thank you, Wordpress.[1] [1] https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/

Sorry, I'm confused, can you help me understand that blog post? I'm getting three messages from it: 1. We like React a lot with or without the license. 2. It's not our job to convince the world React's patent license is fine. 3. We're substantially moving away from React, including large rewrites. ...why are they moving away from React? I'm confused, do they believe using React implicitly supports it? They're already…

I think the key point in that blog post is this:

"Core WordPress updates go out to over a quarter of all websites, having them all inherit the patents clause isn’t something I’m comfortable with."

It's one thing to look at the license and guess that it's vanishingly unlikely you'll ever be in an intellectual property fight with FB (and it sounds like the counsel Automattic consulted with came to that conclusion for Automattic).

It's another thing to make that decision for everybody downstream using software that you distribute. Particularly when that's a reaaaally large number of people.

I'm on much less solid ground in speculating about more, but it's often interesting to watch the contents of speech when people are working to assure you of something:

"One nice thing about this apartment is that it's very secure." (That's interesting. Why is it important that this apartment is very secure? Is the neighborhood not so much secure?)

"This guy we're interviewing here is not being interviewed for your position." (That's interesting. Why do I need to know that, manager?)

In the case of this post, between the lines I potentially see something like:

"Hey FB, we don't feel threatened by the license, and you know, he who writes to code makes the rules, like Linus says. You're obviously doing what's right for you, from your point of view, and we're sure you know what's best for you, and if you're doing right by yourself, do you need to even ask if you're doing the right thing?

You do you, bro. And we're sure you won't be mad that we wanna let everybody else be themselves, too."

Not sure it's there, I could be reading more into it than I need to.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#283

Post by danabramov »

irrational wrote: post #203
pvinis wrote: post #7

Well, everyone that didn't want to use react, didn't use it because of the license, so I guess now these people will be happy too. Good news.

Except not all the pieces of the React ecosystem are changing license, so... we'll probably end up staying with Vue.

Which parts do you rely on that haven’t changed it?

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#284

Post by cookiecaper »

chrisco255 wrote: post #168
CydeWeys wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, big thanks go out to Wordpress. They're no small part of this win for Free Software.

Well...now back to writing code and shipping things...we can all put our irrational fantasies of patent litigation and being "unacquirable" startups due to React to rest.

You're right that this ultimately may only be relevant in a tiny number of cases, but there's no reason to take the risk that your case will be one of the unlucky ones. There are plenty of good React alternatives that don't carry that risk.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#285

Post by abritinthebay »

jnbiche wrote: post #100
abritinthebay wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. There’s going to a lot of self congratulation going on in the comments but basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents . Like... ok, great, better really hope you never get into legal issues with FB now

> basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents If that were true, then why would they write all those blog posts saying that the BSD+Patents was "for their protection". They even repeated it here. It's pretty clear that the patent grant was asymmetric, but not in the direction you're suggesting here.

Oh it works both ways. It's the opposite of the Apache 2 grant for example (which is extremely liberal, and I like it) but that's also exactly what you'd expect from many large companies.

There's a reason that BSD/MIT is preferred by companies vs Apache 2 (which has been adopted, yes, but much less). It's because - just like here - it preserves all their patent rights.

So yes, you now have less protection but FB has just the same if not more.

Don't get me wrong: the patents grant wasn't a great solution but it solved specific problems and concerns on both sides that BSD by itself doesn't even try to address and alternatives (like Apache 2) only address half of.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#286

Post by abritinthebay »

0xbear wrote: post #55
abritinthebay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally not true. You’d just revert to BSD if you sued. So same protection as now.

Literally is true. In the presence of patents BSD license alone (and MIT, too) would basically mean you’re infringing on their IP, and they can and will bring action against you on the basis of your use of their software, even if your legal action against them was over completely unrelated patents.

Not sure what you're trying to say as your phrasing is jumbled but the BSD licence offers zero protection from their patents now. They can sue you whenever they like now.

This is, of course, true of any other OSS and patent holding company.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#287

Post by abritinthebay »

jjnoakes wrote: post #186
abritinthebay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally not true. You’d just revert to BSD if you sued. So same protection as now.

Many argue that the difference is between the old explicit grant (which was one-sided) and the new implicit grant (which is more two-sided). Reverting to BSD doesn't remove the fact that the explicit grant was revoked, so the real comparison of one sued is BSD with no inplicit grant to MIT with an implicit grant.

Implicit grants have very little case law and what law there is doesn't look too useful for people in this case (the patent(s) would have to be extremely specifically applicable to the code, which most patents are designed not to be).

So I trust implicit grants much less than explicit.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#288

Post by cookiecaper »

abiox wrote: post #235
tacon wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Legal matters at big companies generally take months to resolve and come to consensus over. Sure, at your typical big public company. But Facebook voting control is firmly in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg, and he doesn't have to wait for approval of a board of directors. Just like when he decided to buy Instagram for $1 billion in a matter of days. If Mark detected developer sentiment shifting, he can move just as fa…

> If Mark detected developer sentiment shifting, he can move just as fast as he wants to stanch the bleeding. how is react's popularity at all material to facebook's interests? at best it means you get more outside contributions, but you already have plenty of talent internally.

Software companies are all about lock-in, controlling the platform, making sure they have control of as much user and dev attention as possible. At Facebook's world-eater size, the better question is "Why should we not seek to dominate this element of the development platform?"

I can't pretend to know the exact rationale behind Facebook's decision to open-source React, but there are several things to gain from controlling a major piece of the web infrastructure: influence/clout with browser vendors (decisions that may negatively impact React's performance now threaten a huge percentage of the web, not just Facebook.com), the ability to introduce more and more Facebook-controlled technology with something like React as a shoehorn ("You liked React, try Flow..."), PR benefit/good vibes, and so forth.

Platform control is the real showdown among big software companies. It makes your company downright inextricable. Just ask Microsoft.

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#289

Post by slaymaker1907 »

wrs wrote: post #277
carussell wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I've seen "put your head in the sand" as an actual recommendation, instead of being characterized as something not to do. And as far as recommendations go, it's more than a little bit nutty.

Not at all. Willful infringement is grounds for triple damages . So "never, ever, ever look at patents unless an attorney asks you to" was the company policy at Microsoft and Apple when I was there, and at several other major tech companies whose policies I happen to have heard of. If you were to mention to a company attorney that you've looked at another entity's patent, there would be a loud screeching noise from t…

Isn't the point of the patent system supposed to be to encourage people to open up ideas for general use instead of hoarding them?

Re: Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

#290

Post by slaymaker1907 »

jaredklewis wrote: post #229
spenczar5 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current state of things is that patents are stockpiled as deterrents, kind of like nuclear weapons. All of the big companies know that if they sued one another over some patent claim, the other side would retaliate, and it would be a big mess with no real winners. Facebook's patent clause disarms all their opponents, but leaves them free to attack. It's actually a wildly aggressive, offensive weapon, surprisingly…

It seems like people never get tired of not reading the PATENTS file. “Wildly aggressive?” Please. The agreement explicitly forbids Facebook from revoking your patent grant if they are the aggressor. Without the agreement (i.e. just BSD) Facebook is free to sue you for patent infringement. They add a file that says they can’t do that unless you sue them first and suddenly people are out for blood. Salem 2.0.

Only over the React patents. They could, however, sue you over your VR system or something but leave you little recourse due to not wanting to lose your React/other FB patent grants.
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