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Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

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

#221

Post by sulam »

carussell wrote: post #135
nojvek wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because their licence gave Facebook the upper hand if they wanted to come after you. MIT is like a standard when it comes to OS. At big companies, complicated licencies are very hard to get approval of.

> Because their licence gave Facebook the upper hand if they wanted to come after you. No it didn't. Facebook made a nothing-up-the-sleeve showing; you had recourse if they decided to "come after you", because your right to countersue was something that was explicitly protected in the PATENTS grant. Removing the grant, on the other hand, contributes to a world where everyone else can come after you. That should be sc…

I work for a company with at least one lawyer dedicated to IP law and we thought about this long and hard. What it does is potentially make t prohibitive to sue FB if they violate our patents. Since we have hardware patents and they have hardware, it was distinctly possible that this could be a real problem. We decided to proceed anyway but we know we are risking something. And you can say patents suck and we shouldn’t have them, but our hardware patents represent decades of R&D that wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have patent protection.

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

#222

Post by debaserab2 »

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…

FTA:

> I think Facebook’s clause is actually clearer than many other approaches companies could take, and Facebook has been one of the better open source contributors out there. But we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook’s patent clause is fine isn’t ours to take on. It’s their fight.

My interpretation is that due to the negative publicity that Facebook has garnered with their license, they didn't want to scare people away from using/building on top of their platform by using their library even though they themselves did not have a problem with the license.

It's understandable how that might be the final straw for Facebook when even people who don't have a problem with their license won't use their libraries for that reason.

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

#223

Post by tacon »

jhgg wrote: post #87
lelandbatey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I had to speculate, I'd suspect that even though they reaffirmed the BSD+Patent license publicly, FB probably started exploring the possibility of relicensing the projects shortly after that. Not to say WP saying they wont use react didn't help, but I don't think it was the "tipping" point for them at all. Legal matters at big companies generally take months to resolve and come to consensus over. I can easily imag…

>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 fast as he wants to stanch the bleeding.

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

#224

Post by kuschku »

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…

They feared that for example the Apache Foundation wouldn't use WordPress, and so with others.

And yes, the Patents part of that extends downstream to anything using it, that's the dangerous part of patents. It applies to everything that does that — even in independent implementations.

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

#225

Post by Spivak »

JamesFM wrote: post #65
adambrenecki wrote: post #36

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?

Yeah, exactly, what does this actually accomplish besides putting the user in a worse situation where they are no longer given any sort of patent grant?

Because an unspecified parent grant is most likely an implied patent grant, and especially for FOSS there is a very strong case since your are explicitly permitted to study, modify, and use any part of the code.

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

#226

Post by dsacco »

debaserab2 wrote: post #222
dsacco wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FTA: > I think Facebook’s clause is actually clearer than many other approaches companies could take, and Facebook has been one of the better open source contributors out there. But we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook’s patent clause is fine isn’t ours to take on. It’s their fight. My interpretation is that due to the negative publicity that Facebook has garnered with their lic…

Thanks for that clarification. I interpreted that paragraph to be somewhat contradictory (“we like this but we’re moving away from it because it’s not our job to convince people it’s fine”). Your interpretation makes more sense and provides better color to it.

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

#227

Post by dsacco »

kuschku wrote: post #224
dsacco wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They feared that for example the Apache Foundation wouldn't use WordPress, and so with others. And yes, the Patents part of that extends downstream to anything using it, that's the dangerous part of patents. It applies to everything that does that — even in independent implementations.

Fascinating, I didn’t realize it could become an existential problem for them. Thanks!

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

#229

Post by jaredklewis »

spenczar5 wrote: post #144
kelnos wrote: post #71

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…

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.

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

#230

Post by aljones »

spenczar5 wrote: post #144
kelnos wrote: post #71

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 it wasn't unpalatable at Google, MS, Apple and many other large companies.
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