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Startups should not use React

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Re: Startups should not use React

#91

Post by pluma »

scandox wrote: post #86

Trust. Trust. Trust and Trust again. My brain becomes exhausted within seconds of reading a licence. Not just because I'm lazy, but because I know that however closely I think I'm reading it, I probably won't be reading it closely enough to be 100% sure of my conclusions (viz. the differences of opinion here from people that actually have read this thing). So what do I do? I trust certain organisations and I don't tr…

Here's an idea: if you intend to lock people into a technology so you can sue them later, would you

a) build a small library that encourages modular code, has tons of escape hatches to use other libraries and has so few concepts it actually encourages learning the language and solving problems outside the library instead? Or

b) build a large monolith that comes with dozens of idiosyncratic concepts and its own way to solve every problem so you build your entire application inside of it?

If I was a patent troll, I would create Angular, not React.

I don't trust Google, I don't trust Facebook, I don't trust Tilde, I don't trust Evan You. But at least with React I'm not deeply invested in non-transferable knowledge and have easy migration paths if I ever need to move away from it.

Re: Startups should not use React

#92

Post by alvivi »

pluma wrote: post #87

Nerds shouldn't write opinion pieces about subject domains they don't understand. Seriously, stop this. Sometimes you just need to admit you have no idea what you're talking about and shut up. The author honestly thinks using Preact or Inferno could protect them from patent lawsuits. Oh, wait, maybe "Facebook holds any software patents on the Virtual DOM or the React APIs" so better use Vue and Cycle. Unless you actu…

> Nerds shouldn't write opinion pieces about subject domains they don't understand.

Following your words, you should not be even allowed to comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Seriously, stop this.

Re: Startups should not use React

#93

Post by pluma »

danmaz74 wrote: post #66
hdra wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood, It is not a patent on React. As far as I can tell nothing about React is patented... and that is not the discussion over the past few days has been about. This whole shebang has nothing to do with React itself, or the "technology" that React uses or anything, but more about the way many FB's open source libraries are licensed, one of which is React. The license specify that you are free to use…

As others have noted, you CAN sue Facebook if they infringe any of your patents, but then they could counter-sue you for any patents Facebook could have on React. In other words: if you don't sue us, you don't need to care if we have a patent that covers some React mechanism. If you want to sue us, you should first check if we have any React-related patents we could use against you.

Also, you can countersue Facebook as long as you don't sue over patents you have on React. You also can't sue others over patents on React (without losing the grant).

Also more importantly, the conditions don't apply to the BSD license. The patent grant is a separate patent license on top of the copyright license. The license the patent grant refers to is the patent grant itself.

Re: Startups should not use React

#94

Post by CityWanderer »

Vinnl wrote: post #83
CityWanderer wrote: post #81

What makes the PATENTS file legally binding? If I install React via NPM/Yarn, or even as a dependency of another project, I will not see this file. LICENSE is a pretty common convention and you could argue I should seek out this file in every one of my dependencies' dependencies - but how would I know to look for PATENTS? Are all statements in the code base legally binding? Could they be hidden in a source file somew…

Not a lawyer, but I can imagine it can be expected that you do some due diligence before installing it through npm - like checking the website whether their license allows you to use it, and on what terms.

If what you say is true then I think our tool chains are failing us.

My React project has 1,015 dependencies (directories in node_modules). If I didn't have locked versions then every minor automatic update could bring in more dependencies without me knowing.

Can anyone honestly say they've done such due diligence?

Re: Startups should not use React

#95

Post by pluma »

CityWanderer wrote: post #81

What makes the PATENTS file legally binding? If I install React via NPM/Yarn, or even as a dependency of another project, I will not see this file. LICENSE is a pretty common convention and you could argue I should seek out this file in every one of my dependencies' dependencies - but how would I know to look for PATENTS? Are all statements in the code base legally binding? Could they be hidden in a source file somew…

Let's phrase it this way: what do you gain from pretending the PATENTS file isn't legally binding?

The BSD license contains no patent grant. You'd be on very thin ice expecting a court to rule that the BSD copyright license also implies a patent grant. And in this specific case that defense would likely never hold because the PATENTS file even if it weren't binding would signal the intent.

Re: Startups should not use React

#97

Post by Silhouette »

CityWanderer wrote: post #81

What makes the PATENTS file legally binding? If I install React via NPM/Yarn, or even as a dependency of another project, I will not see this file. LICENSE is a pretty common convention and you could argue I should seek out this file in every one of my dependencies' dependencies - but how would I know to look for PATENTS? Are all statements in the code base legally binding? Could they be hidden in a source file somew…

If you didn't have the patent grant, then the default position would be that Facebook could take legal action against you if your use of React infringed any relevant patent they hold, whether you had sued them first or not.

Ignoring (wilfully or otherwise) the PATENTS file doesn't make you any better off.

Re: Startups should not use React

#98

Post by pluma »

k__ wrote: post #21

What is the safe alternative here? I mean probably FB got patents. and Probably they have at least one that covers things React can do. Almost every framework moved to components and virtual DOM. So there is a big chance that any framework out there could infringe some of these React patents. So their either can revoke your React license when you sue them or Sue you over patent infringement if you don't use React

Have you watched Wargames? The only winning move is not to play.

If you have code, you're at risk of being sued over software patents. In the end if you do get sued it likely won't be Google or Facebook, it will be some patent troll you've never heard of that randomly extorts companies into bankruptcy and can't be countersued because they're a non-practicing entity (i.e. they don't have code).

Maybe Facebook has patents for React. Maybe Facebook has patents for other libraries. Maybe other companies have patents for React. You won't find out until it's too late, so stop worrying.

Re: Startups should not use React

#99

Post by Mayzie »

pluma wrote: post #87

Nerds shouldn't write opinion pieces about subject domains they don't understand. Seriously, stop this. Sometimes you just need to admit you have no idea what you're talking about and shut up. The author honestly thinks using Preact or Inferno could protect them from patent lawsuits. Oh, wait, maybe "Facebook holds any software patents on the Virtual DOM or the React APIs" so better use Vue and Cycle. Unless you actu…

> 1) which patents Facebook holds and

> 2) which patents are relevant to each framework/library (i.e. React and various its alternatives)

Facebook needs to come out and give us these answers. There are two scenarios:

1) They have "secret" patents, and the reason they hoard them is to use them as offense when being sued, forcing the suing party (whether "meritless" or meritful) significant monetary loss to rewrite their software with the goal of killing the suit, or,

2) They do not have any patents pertaining to the technology, and so if this is the case, why is the patents clause even present? Why all this hush-hush and incredible resistance to change?

It's dodgy as heck. From Facebook's POV of 1, it's fantastic, but _only to Facebook_ - that's why it's there, it's great strategy. For everybody else? Not so much. Either way, they are being immoral and unethical, especially towards their foundations (free and open source software) and user community and ultimately leads to fragmentation as people try to escape the clause (see Preact, Inferno, et al).

Re: Startups should not use React

#100

Post by Silhouette »

CityWanderer wrote: post #94
Vinnl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but I can imagine it can be expected that you do some due diligence before installing it through npm - like checking the website whether their license allows you to use it, and on what terms.

If what you say is true then I think our tool chains are failing us. My React project has 1,015 dependencies (directories in node_modules). If I didn't have locked versions then every minor automatic update could bring in more dependencies without me knowing. Can anyone honestly say they've done such due diligence?

Can anyone honestly say they've done such due diligence?

That seems doubtful.

And that's a real and potentially serious problem, because IP laws typically don't contain any exemptions for code you're using that infringes someone's IP rights just because it was contributed by a third party.

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