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React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

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Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#101

It's ironic how one can hold utmost respect for Facebook's libraries, but be vehemently against the actual Facebook web application and their business practices.

Programmers should consider the implications of their actions. Using Facebook's libraries support Facebook. If you don't want to support Facebook, you should prefer alternatives to their libraries whenever possible.

- React -> Vue, Mithril, etc.

- React Native -> Weex, NativeScript

- Reason -> Elm, Purescript, Scala.js, Typescript

- etc.

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#102

I'm not surprised, React Native doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think. This is basically a piece of software you'd have to give away (IMHO).

Exact opposite experience. After being a mobile dev for 8+ years and making all of my most recent apps in RN, including a rewrite of one that was many years old, you're wasting your time if you still write native code instead of RN. It's just better in every single way and is an incredibly impressive, stable piece of technology.

Can you make a native button in React Native yet? When I first tried it, there was no button component at all; later, they added a component[1] that emulates (almost correctly) the look and feel of a native button but is not actually native.

I tried to implement a native Android button component myself (i.e. hook it up[2] using Java code), but the problem I ran into was that for the button to compute its desired size, React Native wants to do the measurement step on the JS thread, before the actual button is created (so it can't be asked for its size). And the built-in components' implementation of measurement looked really complicated, so I gave up on it.

[1] https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/button.html

[2] https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/native-componen...

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#103

I'm not surprised, React Native doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think. This is basically a piece of software you'd have to give away (IMHO).

In my experience, this is completely wrong. We recently shipped a music making app which uses React Native for the UI, which is visually fairly rich and non-standard, including real-time rendering of shaders at 60fps responding to user input using gl-react-native and regl, and overall have been very pleased with the speed at which React Native allows you to iterate and the polish/smoothness of the resulting app; not…

> communicate with it in both directions in real-time without significant overhead

Doesn't all the communication have to be done by passing JSON-encoded messages between threads? So compared to calling a function on the same thread, there is very significant overhead, especially if you want to pass large data structures (which would have to be serialized) or if the calling thread needs to block waiting for the answer.

But as long as you stick to send small and asynchronous messages, it doesn't have a significant impact on the user experience, I suppose.

Or did they do something to improve this lately?

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#104

It's ironic how one can hold utmost respect for Facebook's libraries, but be vehemently against the actual Facebook web application and their business practices.

Programmers should consider the implications of their actions. Using Facebook's libraries support Facebook. If you don't want to support Facebook, you should prefer alternatives to their libraries whenever possible. - React -> Vue, Mithril, etc. - React Native -> Weex, NativeScript - Reason -> Elm, Purescript, Scala.js, Typescript - etc.

How exactly using a library supports them?

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#105

I'm not surprised, React Native doesn't work nearly as well as you'd think. This is basically a piece of software you'd have to give away (IMHO).

Exact opposite experience. After being a mobile dev for 8+ years and making all of my most recent apps in RN, including a rewrite of one that was many years old, you're wasting your time if you still write native code instead of RN. It's just better in every single way and is an incredibly impressive, stable piece of technology.

I have 9 years experience developing for iOS and my take is completely opposite. If you know native SDK RN gives you nothing and takes a lot away.

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#106
post #46

It's ironic how one can hold utmost respect for Facebook's libraries, but be vehemently against the actual Facebook web application and their business practices.

It's not at all different from loving music written by drug addicts whom you wouldn't want as friends. Software developers are people too.

Those drug addict musicians that track your every move online, sell your data, make billions from advertising, influence elections. Totally "not at all different".

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#107
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're replying to a lawyer in the Open Source Program Office at Google: https://www.pli.edu/Content/Faculty/Daniel_Berlin/_/N-4oZ1z1... If there's anyone I'd expect to have a handle on open source law, it's him.

While I love reading DannyBee's opinions and am inclined to believe what he says, it's unfair to shoot down parent with an argument from authority; DannyBee did not actually cite any cases to highlight the precedent on implicit patent grants, which is exactly parent's point - it is very difficult to find publicly available information on this, aside from informal commentary.

How much do you want and in what area? Googling "federal circuit implicit patent grant" will find you tons of free sources, as will "Federal circuit exhaustion".

Like i said, it just doesn't say "software" on it. But it's not like this is fresh snow. People have been dealing with this in every facet of thing for years.

There's plenty of caselaw even on things like "person gives away free samples, later tries to sue for patent infringement" or "person gives gift, later tries to sue for patent infringement and "person licenses !software, later tries to sue for patent infringement".

If you have access to lexis or something, it's all neatly organized too :)

If you don't, here's a reasonable case to start on exhaustion:

http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or...

Exhaustion of patent rights applies even when it's given away free: "In summary, we hold that patent exhaustion principles apply equally to all authorized transfers of title in property, regardless of whether the particular transfer at issue constituted a gift or a sale. "

Here's an older article with a ton of cites: https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/the-u-s-supreme-court-c...

Note: All the parts in the article that talk about restricting use post-sale are now invalid. The supreme court held, last year, that post-sale restrictions cannot be imposed, exhaustion still occurs, too bad, so sad. (http://www.ipwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Supreme...)

Now remember, it doesn't matter if it was sold sold or given away,, i just gave you precedent saying it applies just as well to a gift.

So those are out the window too.

That's just on the exhaustion side, even without finding an implied license (which are closely related).

There really is just no precedent to hang your hat on that says "yeah, you can give people stuff, tell them they can use it, and then sue them for patent infringement".

It doesn't matter if it's an implied grant, exhaustion, you name it. There is just no case out there that says "yeah, that's okay".

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Actually, pretty much any serious patent licensing lawyer believes there is a grant (either explicit or implicit), because there is tons and tons and tons of caselaw on implicit patent grants (and the related principles of exhaustion), and while they don't include the word "software", the circumstances are otherwise identical. The others are mostly unable to admit it due to their client lists. The number of lawyer…

Regarding the MIT license, I know one lawyer who disagrees in practice but I'm not sure if that lawyer seriously believes it. That lawyer is associated with an effort by some companies that have traditionally used standards-setting activity as a patent license revenue generating activity, to argue that open source licenses can legitimately preclude any grant of patent license, explicitly or implicitly (that is, that…

I really hope Scott posts his research. I know he's given this a lot of thought and looked through a lot of precedent on this issue.

Honestly, he was the one who convinced me that there really is nothing out there to hang your hat on when it comes to suing people for patent infringement in MIT licensed software.

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers should consider the implications of their actions. Using Facebook's libraries support Facebook. If you don't want to support Facebook, you should prefer alternatives to their libraries whenever possible. - React -> Vue, Mithril, etc. - React Native -> Weex, NativeScript - Reason -> Elm, Purescript, Scala.js, Typescript - etc.

How exactly using a library supports them?

They benefit from other developers using it or they wouldn’t go through the trouble of making it accessible outside of the company.

Access to good talent runs try. Maybe you grow a team of highly talented developers using Facebook’s stack. Facebook is more capable of recruiting them since they’re already familiar with some of Facebook’s stack.

Re: React Native and Yoga Both Given MIT Licence by Facebook

#110
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had changed the license when the community asked, that would have been listening to the community, but they didn't. Changing the license because people are leaving the project only shows that FB cares about itself.

I totally get that view and it bums me out. I can say there is reasoned debate about the different licenses as you can see in this thread. We've changed an explicit patent grant into a debated implicit one. We thought the first was clearer to folks but when debate turned into action we decided winning the debate wasn't important we should just do what would allow people to use the code. I know big companies can look…

You forgot to mention that the explicit grant came with obnoxious conditions, and those conditions were the crux of the issue. Your characterization of the change says a lot about the internal discussions in which you participated.
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