381–390 of 528 posts
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Those websites weren't leaving, they never arrived..
They were close to arriving but they backtracked, all 25% of them. I'd call that an exodus before you even arrive.
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I don't get your point about MIT licensed being a standard. The BSD license used by React is a standard too.
But BSD+Patents isn't.
But I read in other comments that some some lawyers think MIT implies a patent grant, which could explain why they switched from BSD to MIT.
Wait, so they're replacing a license that has a dodgy patent grant that everyone distrusted, with a license that doesn't have a patent grant at all? Why not Apache?
Implied patent licenses:
https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.a....
https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech7.html
Basically, if you sell or license a product that requires a patent to work, courts have generally held that you grant an implied patent license for any patents that the product might require. If you explicitly reference patents within the license, however, then whatever terms you explicitly write into the license supersede this implied patent license. BSD+patents (and Apache 2) have explicit patent language; paradoxically, this makes them more restrictive than licenses like MIT, BSD, or GPL that don't mention patents at all.
So... I guess I still don't understand what was wrong with BSD+Patents. I get that there's legal uncertainty: I can imagine some companies, especially larger ones, not wanting to give up their patent-suit option just because one random small team in their org is using React. And barriers to adoption aren't a great idea when one of your goals is wide adoption. Overall, though, I think making it much harder to file pat…
If it's licensed MIT, the Engineers just say "it's MIT license like half of the libraries we already use" and it's a legal non-issue. If the license is not one of the standard ones already in use, and it mentions patents, suddenly legal gets involved and it's a disaster. They're very risk-adverse and no one's really sure what will happen when it gets to court. It doesn't have to make sense - after all, most software…
That's... sad.
> Being aware of patents ... makes punitive damages worse.
Sure, but that doesn't have anything to do with a BSD+Patents license. The license doesn't say "you also must do extensive patent research when using our software". You have to actually be aware of the patents that you're infringing to be held liable for extra damages.
Before all the congratulating goes too far, it is important to realize that only some projects had the license change but it went to an MIT license. What people really want is for these projects to be licensed under Apache 2 (like they did with RocksDB). The other thing is that there are many projects that are STILL going to be on the BSD+Patent license. These include widely used projects such as React Native and Gra…
Vue: MIT Angular: MIT Preact: MIT Knockout: MIT JQuery: MIT Backbone: MIT Ember: MIT Aurelia: MIT ... React switches to MIT...People still FUD. WTF.
Before all the congratulating goes too far, it is important to realize that only some projects had the license change but it went to an MIT license. What people really want is for these projects to be licensed under Apache 2 (like they did with RocksDB). The other thing is that there are many projects that are STILL going to be on the BSD+Patent license. These include widely used projects such as React Native and Gra…
So... I guess I still don't understand what was wrong with BSD+Patents. I get that there's legal uncertainty: I can imagine some companies, especially larger ones, not wanting to give up their patent-suit option just because one random small team in their org is using React. And barriers to adoption aren't a great idea when one of your goals is wide adoption. Overall, though, I think making it much harder to file pat…
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…
But on second reading I realize I was wrong (in a good way). Facebook's patent grant specifically says that if they sue you for patent infringement, and you counter-sue with something that is unrelated to the software of FB's that you are using, then your license to use FB's software is NOT terminated. That's actually entirely reasonable and great.
Is the MIT license considered to come with an implicit patent grant?
Why replace BSD + patent grant with MIT, instead of keeping BSD alone without a patent grant?
They replaced BSD with MIT, because the language used in the MIT license is closer to what constitutes a patent grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...
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Furthermore, suppose you're some company like, say, IBM which figured out some way to say, safely double the energy density and recharge cycles of Lithium Ion batteries, which you have patented. Let's also assume that you are shipping some critical problem which is dependent on React. Facebook could now freely use your patented idea, and violating it left, right, and center, and if you try to sue them for violating t…
> and if you try to sue them for violating that patent, you're completely f*cked. No, if you try to sue them for violating that patent, they can try to sue you for using React - if they actually have valid patents that cover React, that is. I doubt IBM's lawyers are breaking a sweat. Why do you keep spreading FUD about this stuff even after Facebook withdraws the license?