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Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

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

#201

Post by irrational »

jameside wrote: post #49
vvanders wrote: post #6

Looks like React Native isn't included in the list for a license update.

The author of this Facebook Engineering post confirmed that React Native's license currently is the same as it's always been: https://twitter.com/dmwlff/status/911348886882607104 . I don't want to get into a big discussion about precise details here but pragmatically both the MIT and Facebook BSD+Patents licenses work well for most businesses, in particular those that aren't seeking to claim patent infringement again…

Unfortunately lawyers don't care about pragmatics :-(

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

#202

Post by rdiddly »

lelandbatey wrote: post #76
jhgg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it was related. The wheels to get this in motion must have started months in advanced, probably around the time ASF started advising against this license (labeling at as Category-X [1]) [1] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x

In a statement from Facebook on August 18th, 33 days ago[0]: We have considered possible changes carefully, but we won't be changing our default license or React's license at this time. We recognize that we may lose some React community members because of this decision. We are sorry for that, but we need to balance our desire to participate in open source with our desire to protect ourselves from costly litigation. G…

Oh sure, a framework used on a quarter of the web might have had something to do with it, but actually it was my Hacker News comment the day after the Wordpress news, that put the final, decisive nail in the coffin. It captured so many people's hearts and minds, it ended up with seven upvotes ...and still counting. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Yup, 7.

You're welcome everybody! And thanks for the assist, Wordpress!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15254977

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

#203

Post by irrational »

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.

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

#204

Post by AnkhMorporkian »

blaqkangel wrote: post #11

That was incredibly unexpected. Facebook may very well end up in the majority's good graces with this move. I wonder how some of the bigger players will react (no pun intended) after their abandonment of React in lieu of Vue or some other framework. Interesting times indeed.

I... well, I kinda expected it. Facebook wanted their products to be used, but it was obviously their legal department that made them put the patent clause in. The more people who develop using their libraries, the more contributions they get back, and the more benefit they get from it.

I almost guarantee you none of the devs wanted that weird-ass patent clause in there, but I'm guessing that none of them thought that it was a big deal in the long run, just CYA shit you'd expect from a legal department.

They were proven wrong, and it impacted their market share, they raised a stink about it and they got it changed.

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

#205

Post by irrational »

carussell wrote: post #176
discordianfish wrote: post #61

Can someone explain why this is good news? As I understood it, the former license was as permissive but additionally to that included a patent grant?

It's a response to placate folks who pick a stance based on the memes that the newstides wash up. In other words, it's not exactly good news at all, it's just a really big deal.

That's not fair. The lawyers at my company (Fortune 150) may have been irrational in forbidding us from using React, but they were hardly influenced by memes.

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

#206

Post by joshmanders »

irrational wrote: post #193
joshmanders wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything from the Apache foundation to Wordpress. Those were the only two.

Only 2 that you know of. I work for a Fortune 150 company and we settled on Vue almost solely due to the licensing issue.

I too work for a Fortune 150 company and we've gone all in on React.

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

#209

Post by [deleted] »

wmccullough wrote: post #198
chrisco255 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love HN, and I hate to risk my account, but I'm tired of responses like this. You're being an asswipe. There is no reason for you to respond this way. The lens upon which you view the world must be pretty god damned shallow to make these kinds of statements. If you want to be a fuckstick and reply like this, please find another community.

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