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Explaining React's license

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Re: Explaining React's license

#471

Post by vonmoltke »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #305
chrisco255 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The clause states you only lose the patent rights if YOU sue Facebook for patent infringement (and only for patent infringement, not other reasons). As pointed out by Dennis Walsh in ( https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok... ), it would take millions to bring a patent suit against Facebook.

Yeah, and if Facebook DOES infringe on a patent you own, and it's a valid case? You then have to rewrite your frontend code base as fast as you can? At it's best this is like some sort of warped "you infringe on my patents and I'll infringe on yours" kind of thing, assuming MAD means it doesn't become a very-uneven suing war. This case is also bad news, because larger companies are much more capable of infringing on…

> Yeah, and if Facebook DOES infringe on a patent you own, and it's a valid case? You then have to rewrite your frontend code base as fast as you can?

In that case, you have two other options:

* Quietly swap out your frontend before you file

* Continue using React and dare Facebook to produce a patent they can actually claim

This, of course, is based on the assumption that your frontend is a significant portion of your product. If your frontend is a trivial portion, then "rewrite your frontend code base as fast as you can" is also trivial.

Edit: fixed formatting

Re: Explaining React's license

#472

Post by jaredklewis »

falcolas wrote: post #434
Lazare wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using React just opens you up to liability, with no real benefit (other than using React). How? Again, if they have a patent, they can sue you if you use one of the alternatives mentioned. If they don't have a patent, they can't sue you if you use React. What's your thinking behind saying using React adds liability? Because to me, it looks like either it does nothing or it reduces liability.

You have it backwards. If you have a patent, and use React, you can't sue Facebook if they use your patent.

But you can still sue Facebook. Nowhere does the PATENTS file require grantees to waive their right to sue. But if you do sue, Facebook gains the right to counter-sue you with any react related patents.

I.e. the exact situation you would be in if you sued Facebook and there was no PATENTS file.

Re: Explaining React's license

#474

Post by carussell »

cyphar wrote: post #293
carussell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how Facebook would feel if all the open source software they currently use incorporated the same license That would work incredibly well to neutralize patents, actually, and would be a huge win for free/open source software. It's surprising not to have seen anyone point out the logical conclusion of a world where every major license includes a React-like stance on patents: it's a world where no one is able to bring…

> It's surprising not to have seen anyone point out the logical conclusion of a world where every major license includes a React-like stance on patents The thing is, I agree with your premise that we should always push for licenses that (in the long term) will result in a better free software world where threats such as software patents and draconian copyright are effectively neutralised. All three GPLs did this to c…

Please re-review the licenses.

> Apache and GPLv3 both tackle this problem because the copyright license is terminated if anyone sues a copyright holder (and GPLv3 even more so because it's copyleft).

This is not true of Apache 2.0. Filing a patent suit against someone over a piece of Apache licensed software means the plaintiff loses the grant to patents held by other contributors to that software, but that's the extent of it.

> If Facebook sues you over a patent unrelated to React, you cannot counter-sue them for any patents they may be infringing

This is also untrue. Your ability to file a countersuit for other patents is explicitly protected by the React grant. This has been the case ever since version 2 was published.

See https://github.com/facebook/react/commit/b8ba8c83f318b84e429...

> If Facebook became a bad actor, would this patent license be better or worse for the community than Apache 2 or GPLv3

Either better or the same, depending on your values, but definitely not worse. The license termination clauses in Apache 2.0 and GPLv3 are so narrow they don't offer any greater protection against bad actors.

Re: Explaining React's license

#475

Post by mygo »

joobus wrote: post #66
pdfernhout wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I got tons of pushback when I tried to steer Automattic and the WordPress community away from React in 2015 with people saying not to worry: "Replace React with Mithril for licensing reasons" https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/650 Personally, I increasingly doubt that BSD+PATENTS is even GPL-compatible -- and so potentially Automattic may be violating the GPL by using React integrated with WordPres…

React also has react-native. There is no comparable alternative for that.

Pretty sure VueJS has Weex (https://weex.incubator.apache.org)

Re: Explaining React's license

#476

Post by vonmoltke »

jnbiche wrote: post #408
IanKelling wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am frustrated with software with trivially incompatible licenses. It's not a copyright license, and it's not incompatible with any other free software license. I'm frustrated with the misinformation spread about it. If this patent license/grant get's revoked, you are back to simply using the BSD license with no patent grant. I've read so many people say "you'd have to stop using react if you sued facebook", uh, n…

Your explanation really doesn't jibe with the explanation given in Facebook's post. If what you say is true, why do they make a point about this patent grant protecting them against patent trolls? There's something tricky about this that I can't figure out, but I really have a hard-time believing they're acting in good faith here.

As cited at multiple other places in this thread, Facebook's own FAQ on the licensing explicitly states what GP just did.

Re: Explaining React's license

#477

Post by thesagan »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #215
thesagan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also going to hop on this train and move away from react. Personally and professionally, I don't like the direction the big players are taking the internet. (The closed, proprietary model.) I suppose there's not much I can do about it except to move my efforts elsewhere, even if it affects my earnings.

> I don't like the direction the big players are taking the internet It's more like developers in large parts stopped caring for standards and looked after products and "big players" and "the next big thing" instead aka the consumerization of IT. Happened to SQL, browsers, middleware, network protocols, app servers, containers, programming and markup languages, and more. Nowadays, big things come onto the scene and i…

An even better point than mine! Yes, developers (us) have enabled this situation, as well.

Drives home the point of why I need to move on and be careful where I put effort.

Re: Explaining React's license

#478

Post by ballenf »

true_religion wrote: post #230
Lazare wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The risk behind Preact isn't the API . Remember, this is a discussion about patents , so what matters is fundamental concepts and algorithms. The most likely thing for Facebook to patent is the concept of a virtual DOM that's diffed to apply updates to the real DOM. IF they have such a patent (and apparently they don't), then any library that has a vdom implementation infringes, including Preact. Of course, if they D…

They would have to sue on the basis that Preact and by extension all React-compatible APIs are in violation of their patent. This would cause mass alienation in the community for little gain, and force many previously neutral parties to align against them for attacking a completely separate project. And for little damage as well.... If we rewrote our sites to use React coming from Backbone, JQuery and Angular... it w…

They would simply sue a particular company for employing infringing technology. They wouldn't have to nor want to make any broader claim than necessary to achieve their goals in the case at hand.

It would likely be a company suing FB for infringing a patent who happens to also use Preact in a site. FB presumably wouldn't have access to the site source code (pre-suit), but would be looking at the compiled, minified public site. I don't know how Preact and React look when compiled compared to each other, but given their similar structures it might be hard to tell them apart. FB would identify the offending bits of code or code structure. They wouldn't need to even use the word "Preact" (or "React") in the suit.

If the underlying suit was a patent troll suing FB, FB's use of React patent clause might actually be celebrated in a enemy-of-my-enemy kind of way by the broader developer community.

It would require FB to finally disclose the patent numbers applicable to React. I've spent a few hours attempted to review FB's patents to find anything related to React technology, but it's a needle in a haystack challenge and I failed. There are tens of thousands of patents and impossible to know what keywords to search for. (If someone else has done this work, would be great!)

Re: Explaining React's license

#480

Post by cyphar »

Lazare wrote: post #465
cyphar wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They revoke the React patent grant, which effectively downgrades "the React license" to just a stock BSD 3-clause license. At that point they will likely counter-sue you for patent infringement. In my mind that situation is effectively identical to losing "the right to use" license on grounds of patent suit (like Apache). Interestingly, in Apache you'd still be sued for patent infringement (not copyright infringement…

> They revoke the React patent grant, which effectively downgrades "the React license" to just a stock BSD 3-clause license. At that point they will likely counter-sue you for patent infringement. Yes, but for what patent? People have looked; none have been found. :)

Patent applications are secret, not to mention that software patents can be very difficult to interpret and search for. RMS gave a fairly long talk about the various problems with software patents[1], and the difficulty in being able to find all software patents that may be related to a project is one of them.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiKRt3-FbM0

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