Explaining React's license

https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/

by y4m4b4 • 9 years ago

978 595 9 years ago

code.facebook.com

Hmm... "You don't like it? Go jump in a lake." Is that really an explanation?

ergo142• 9 years ago

Well generally React users seem to not care. So I don't blame FB. I guess the clause could be rewritten to be more like what Google/Apache 2.0 does - then everyone would be happy.

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

React was originally under the Apache2 license. So is this a bit of a bait-and-switch? https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/75897c2dcd1dd3a6ca462...

Also, could that original patent grant in the original license apply to later versions of React?

fhrow44847• 9 years ago

This is in reply to the Apache Software Foundation decision to list the BSD + Patents license as a Category-X license.

- Facebook gets attacked by meritless patent litigation

- Facebook creates the BSD + Patents license, which has the following effect :

The patent grant says that if you're going to use the software we've released under it, you lose the patent license from us if you sue us for patent infringement.

- Facebook believe that 'if this license were widely adopted, it could actually reduce meritless litigation for all adopters'

I understand Facebook's position here, surely this will decrease meritless litigation, but what about meritful litigation?

Let's take an example, a small startup has a cool technology but also all their front-end is using React. That cool technology is patented.

Now if 'Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates' infringe on that patent, that startup won't be able to sue them without first re-writing the entire front-end to not use React.

I don't think software should be patent-able in the first place anyways but it seems the situation above would still be true if that startup sues them for what they believe is a completely legitimate hardware patent.

Also, IANAL, I'm wondering what even is the definition of a 'corporate affiliate' here? Who is a 'corporate affiliate' of FB?

Finally, what 'patent license' are they referring to in this post anyways ? The react's PATENT clause (https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933...) says they're providing the React software License, and they revoke this software license if you sue them.

bpicolo6• 9 years ago

without first re-writing the entire front-end to not use React

Do note this isn't necessarily the case, because nobody has yet found a patent that covers React.

kbenson4• 9 years ago

Doesn't that only help if we have a react clone to drop in place? That's not necessarily hard to do without patents, but does it exist?

Edit: I think I see what you are saying. It says you lose the patent license, not necessarily the license for the software that doesn't have a patent, so doesn't do anything. Not sure how a judge would decide to interpret it though.

fhrow44847• 9 years ago

This is what I find confusing, the blog post mentions a patent license that you are granted, but as you say, nobody is aware of any patent covering React. React's doesn't seem to use any novel technique in the field of CS.

But https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933... , the way I read it says they grant you a license to to "make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer" the React Software. They don't seem to give you a license to any patent.

eridius6• 9 years ago

Facebook's license means you lose the license to React if you sue Facebook for any patents, not just for patents that are related to React. That's the core problem here.

valuearb• 9 years ago

Since patents are evil, I have no problem with some small startup losing the ability to be a patent troll.

bryanlarsen2• 9 years ago

Facebook and other large software firms have a large arsenal of patents that's sufficient to defend themselves from a patent lawsuit from a large competitor. These patents are broad. So if you're writing web software with any amount of compexity, you probably infringe on Facebook's patents. If you are a small firm that owns a patent Facebook is infringing on and you wish to litigate it, you have basically two options:

1: give up your main business so you no longer infringe on the Facebook patents. IOW, become a troll.

2: get demolished by the Facebook counter suit.

The React license doesn't change those two options one bit, it just makes it much more obvious. Facebook's intent is likely just to prevent the suits from even being considered in the first place.

Steeeve3• 9 years ago

We've been looking for ways around this and have reached out to ASF to see if we could try to work with them, but have come up empty.

This, to me, is a significant warning sign.

I was leery of the React license to begin with. But the community at large had _almost_ convinced me that it was nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, Facebook's position as stated here is clearly that the license is weaponized for a reason. I think it's irresponsible to leverage software with this license without clear guidance from legal and corporate overlords stating that it's OK.

votepaunchy5• 9 years ago

The fallback to BSD+Patents is simply BSD and should be evaluated by legal and corporate likewise.

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

"Fallback"? Are you referring to Preact?

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

No it is not, and that is what so many people misunderstand about this. Plain BSD has an implicit patent grant to the extent needed to run the software. An explicit patent license overrides that implicit grant. Of course, that interpretation is still subject to what the courts say in a lawsuit.

Of course, you are right that legal and corporate should review such a license. And for any company that deals in patents (or has customers who deal in patents), the likely answer is "no way".

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

I agree. Even if they're not necessarily up to something nefarious, this all seems quite odd.

abritinthebay• 9 years ago

That’s an impressive conclusion you’ve jumped to there, but there’s no evidence of it in the linked post or your comment.

That, to me, is also a significant warning sign.

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

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 WordPress.

What's especially sad about this is that React isn't even that good compared to other vdoms like Mithril and Inferno and others. React just has a lot of name recognition and mindshare from the Facebook association (which then translates into a rich-get-richer effect with more tutorials and components).

Here is a list of more than twenty alternative vdoms I put together in January 2016 (although Mithril remains my favorite): https://github.com/dojo/meta/issues/11#issuecomment-17679024...

joobus2• 9 years ago

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

bryanlarsen2• 9 years ago

Most of those twenty probably infringe on Facebook patents. You can choose to use a library with an explicit grant, or a library with unclear patent status.

Lazare19• 9 years ago

If Facebook has a patent on React, it's almost certainly going to be on the vdom concept.

If Facebook has a patent on the vdom, then all the projects in your list violate the patent, and none of them come with even a conditional patent grant from Facebook.

If Facebook does not have a patent on the vdom or other React technology, then those other projects are safe, but so is React, since termination of the patent grant has zero cost to you.

My personal belief is that Facebook has no patents on React, so I feel safe to use React, Mithril, or any other vdom based library. But I can certainly understand people who feel like they need to play it safe, assume Facebook does have a vdom patent, and avoid all such libraries.

But I'm not really following your logic at all. It's like you think Facebook has a patent, but then you only want to use the libraries that maximise your ability to get sued over it? What am I missing?

throwgoog452• 9 years ago

People used to say that the GPL was illegal, unacceptable, immoral, and all sorts of other things. Then, gradually, everyone started using it, and copyleft became an acceptable software licensing strategy. I hope that BSD + Patents also achieves gradual acceptability.

seanmcdirmid• 9 years ago

People started using the GPL because it works fine for software that isn't distributed to consumers, e.g. on servers. Those uses have subverted the entire intent of he license, however.

chii2• 9 years ago

Those uses have subverted the entire intent of the license

You're reading too much into the intent of the license. GPLv2 being used on servers is a valid use case.

Tivoization is indeed subverting the intent of GPLv2, which is one of the reason for GPLv3. But in the case of Tivoization, you _are_ distributing the code to end users, rather than just running it on their behalf, and hence, in my eyes, violates the intent of GPL (that end users you distribute your software to should be allowed to modify the software).

Hosted software isn't like tivoization, in that the host doesn't distribute, and so no GPL issues whatsoever.

wolco4• 9 years ago

The more conditions we apply the less usage it will get. But adding conditions like everyone can share in the changes provides a different value and encourages more changes.

GPL works because it forces the source code to remain open allowing everyone to enjoy all new changes.

BSD works because you are free to repackage and resell with bsd code. This code can be used in an existing product.

danjoc• 9 years ago

This is a defensive answer. Facebook doesn't even enumerate the React related patents, so you're left guessing about that. At the very least, they should maintain and up to date list of patents granted. What do they have to hide?

true_religion4• 9 years ago

Probably the fact that they have no patents with regards to React...

gstein6713• 9 years ago

With patents, it is usually best to not show your hand. Patent holders never publish the list of patents that read on their software.

adamnemecek• 9 years ago

Move to cycle.js. It's a better framework anyway https://cycle.js.org

grizzles2• 9 years ago

Facebook's position on this is weird. Any company that wants to use react and avoid liability arising from Facebook's terms can do so easily by incorporating a subsidiary or wholly separate company and paying that company $1 to license the UI built on react. Maybe this is about fencing off Google/Amazon/Alibaba/etc who might be reluctant to do something that would be technically legal but something that a jury might take a dim view of. That seems to been the thesis behind Oracle v Google.

rdtsc• 9 years ago

Or just use Vue or similar library

wolco4• 9 years ago

Unfortunately the wording covers a subsidiary, agents act on behalf and any interest including financial even in an indirect way.

grizzles2• 9 years ago

Since Facebook grants a license, the worst case scenario is you sue Facebook for infringing your "X" patent, and then they search your website and find a react ui, and then you say oh we bought that off WebKidCo. IANAL but it seems farfetched that a court could/would hold a company bound to such a broad clause for what it's supplier(s) did. Or you could just sue Facebook for using your patent "X" after having first moved the patent into a non practicing entity.

throwaway26960• 9 years ago

Onto the next Javascript framework!

thesausageking• 9 years ago

Their decision was not a legal decision about the compatibility of projects with this license. As has always been the case, source code licensed under the Facebook BSD + Patents license can be combined with source code licensed under other open source licenses like BSD, MIT, Apache 2.0, and GPL.

What complete, tone deaf newspeak. If a BSD-licensed project uses code with a Facebook BSD license, the project is now Facebook BSD licensed. That means it's incompatible with the BSD license.

votepaunchy5• 9 years ago

The additional Patents clause can simply be disregarded or, if not, then just file a patent lawsuit against Facebook. The plain BSD license does not offer a patent grant so there is no incompatibility.

The Apache Software License does grant a patent license [0] (as does GPLv3) so is incompatible with either of these BSD licenses (unless an 'implied' grant is assumed).

[0] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#patent

brianmurphy• 9 years ago

Not tone deaf at all. The BSD license explicitly permits reuse in differently licensed software.

This is the ultimate disagreement of what software freedom means. GPL people think derivatives of their software should remain free. (the viral nature of GPL) Strong BSD proponents believe the freedom to incorporate the software into non-BSD projects (including closed software) is the ultimate freedom.

It sounds like you are more in the copyleft/GPL camp if you are concerned with derivative works remaining compatible with the original license.

rhizome3• 9 years ago

The way I read it, ASF denied FB's BSD+Patents license in a mysterious bureaucratic decision that will cause a lot of pain for companies that use React, while FB's decision to create the BSD+Patents license was an altruistic move designed to benefit the software ecosystem and reduce their patent litigation overhead.

I believe FB is at the "pounding on the table" stage.

gstein6713• 9 years ago

The ASF does not want downstream users to be caught by more restrictions than those of the ALv2. The BSD+Patents licensing imposes more restrictions; thus, Apache projects cannot depend upon software under that license.

This is pretty clear, and the ASF has been operating under this "no more restrictive than the Apache license" since its origin.

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

Facebook claims BSD+PATENTS is GPL compatible. I'd like to hear what the FSF has to say about that.

gstein6713• 9 years ago

The two copyright-based licenses are compatible, based on pretty much every legal opinion published.

Facebook is offering a separate patent license, and that is out-of-scope of the GPL.

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

I agree the plain BSD 2 and GPL licenses are compatible. The issue here is how the PATENTS file from Facebook reduces an implicit patent grant by the BSD license making BSD+PATENTS into essentially a different license with less permissions than plain BSD.

According to the FAQ on the GPLv3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html "Whenever someone conveys software covered by GPLv3 that they've written or modified, they must provide every recipient with any patent licenses necessary to exercise the rights that the GPL gives them."

So, since GPLv3 talks about patents, and the Facebook PATENTS clause reduces the implicit patent grant of BSD, I feel it is in scope for GPLv3. A plain BSD 2.0 license with an implicit patent grant would presumably provide enough patent rights to be compatible with GPLv3. To my reading of the situation, BSD+PATENTS does not seem to provide enough patent rights to comply with GPLv3 (because of the one-sided retaliation clause of Facebook's PATENTS file).

The GPLv2 is a different story which is less clear to me.

In section 7 GPLv2 says: "If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."

So, because some of your downstream users might not have a valid patent grant from Facebook if they sue Facebook for infringing their patents, does the last sentence imply you can't distribute the combined BSD+PATENTS and GPLv2 code?

tbrock• 9 years ago

Isn't the style of programming react imposes (unidirectional data flow and component composition) the real innovation for front end applications here?

Sure the dom diffing technology was hot at the time it came out but it's basically is a commodity item at this point.

In that sense, the open source community can (and should) build multiple react clones that are licensed more liberally.

Sure, I'm annoyed by the licensing of React too, I think abou it a lot. But does it really matter that Facebook won't budge on this? The technology is out there whether it's React or not.

krirken• 9 years ago

Indeed, preact [1] and and inferno [2] are both MIT Licensed.

[1] https://github.com/developit/preact/blob/master/LICENSE

[2] https://github.com/infernojs/inferno/blob/master/LICENSE.md

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

I agree, and I for one will start using Preact and/or Inferno henceforth.

ricardobeat• 9 years ago

React is not concerned at all with state management (other than local state), and there are decades of prior art for component systems.

zwily• 9 years ago

I'd agree with you, but... React Native. :(

tarr11• 9 years ago

I wonder how much BSD + patents actually diminishes lawsuits for Facebook. Is React that widespread? What happens if you stop using React, and replace it with a clone like Preact?

I also wonder if this will hold up in court, or is purely a defensive measure.

gstein6713• 9 years ago

Just say one, for discussion purposes. One is likely worth the (minimal?) loss of Goodwill/combinatorics/bundling with their licensing choice.

rhizome3• 9 years ago

If it succeeds as FUD, they'll never have to defend it.

abhisuri97• 9 years ago

ELI5 anyone? My basic understanding is if you use React and decide to sue FB for patent infringement down the line, FB can countersue(?) bc they revoke your grant to use the patent upon you suing them. But what _exactly_ constitutes using React? Of course using the library is one thing, but what about using some other library that installs React as some dependency? Does using JSX also count as using "React"? I just feel that what exactly constitutes using React is very vague esp considering there are many non-FB tools that use "React" (and associated technologies, eg the idea of Virtual DOM) in some form or another.

ufo2• 9 years ago

IANAL but...

but what about using some other library that installs React as some dependency?

I think that still counts as "using react".

Does using JSX also count as using "React"?

I think that if you use a custom JSX compiler instead of the one that comes with React then you could be clean. JSX itself is just a programming language and cannot be copyrighted.

I just feel that what exactly constitutes using React is very vague esp

I don't think that is vague, actually. In the end, what matters is if the whole system includes React source code in some way or another.

and associated technologies, eg the idea of Virtual DOM

Associated technologies are not covered by copyright. They could possibly be covered by patents but that would be a whole different can of worms.

wolco4• 9 years ago

jsx is defininity not owned by react

eridius6• 9 years ago

We've been looking for ways around this and have reached out to ASF to see if we could try to work with them, but have come up empty.

There's a pretty obvious solution to this: relicense React. The fact that Facebook isn't even considering that is a pretty strong indication that they "weaponized" their license on purpose.

To this point, though, we haven't done a good job of explaining the reasons behind our BSD + Patents license.

I think we already understand the reasoning behind it.

As our business has become successful, we've become a larger target for meritless patent litigation.

And the solution you chose stops merit-ful litigation as well.

We respect third party IP, including patents, and expect others to respect our IP too.

Clearly you don't, because you've intentionally designed a license to allow you carte blanche to violate other companies' patents if they're dependent enough upon React to not be able to easily stop using it.

cbuq3• 9 years ago

They need to stop referring to React as open source software. This is proprietary source code.

We believe that if this license were widely adopted, it could actually reduce meritless litigation for all adopters, and we want to work with others to explore this possibility.

They do not give a pathway for litigation with merit. This is a patent weapon.

kbenson4• 9 years ago

No company assumes a meritorious lawsuit against them exists. Planning for it is ridiculous. Don't take that as a defense of this type of license though.

azr792• 9 years ago

Is Angular proprietary too?

JRITSRob• 9 years ago

They need to stop referring to React as open source software. This is proprietary source code.

Somewhere along the line we lost the distinction between "Open Source" and "Source Opened".

jaredklewis5• 9 years ago

I would patiently beg everyone to employ some basic reasoning.

Situation A: React is licensed under BSD + PATENTS. You sue Facebook for infringing your widget patent. Turns out Facebook has a patent for something in react. They revoke your grant and counter sue you for infringing that patent. Long legal battle ensues.

Situation A: React is licensed under just BSD. You sue Facebook for infringing your widget patent. Turns out Facebook has a patent for something in react. You never had a grant so Facebook counter sues you for infringing that patent. Long legal battle ensues.

Can someone coldly explain how anyone anywhere would be helped in any way by removing the patents file? Or is the BSD license the problem?

SAI_Peregrinus• 9 years ago

People are worried about Situation C: React is licensed under BSD + PATENTS. You sue Facebook (or any corporate affiliate of theirs) for infringing on your widget patent. Facebook revokes your react license and counter sues you for copyright infringement.

The patents clause doesn't have anything to do with any patents on parts of React. It's a way for Facebook to make it so that anyone who wants to sue them for patent infringement can't use React.

amluto• 9 years ago

There's a school of thought that the BSD permission to "use" the software implies a patent grant. As an extension of this school of thought, React's PATENTS file could be seen at modifying that grant.

spacetexas3• 9 years ago

Not sure why you think that Facebook can claim patents on BSD licensed software without specific identification. Your second situation can't occur.

The problem is that in the case you have a legitimate claim against Facebook they always have an 'out' if you have significant React use in your org.

kavok5• 9 years ago

If all situations are equal, why do they need the protection anyways? This is out of step with every other comparable library / framework / whatever.

sandGorgon2• 9 years ago

Not sure what you mean by this. This discussion is about the Apache license not the BSD license. So situation 2 does not exist.

Apache license includes an irrevocable patent grant.

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

I personally am most worried about Facebook's attitude toward dissent on this issue. There's clearly an overwhelming number of developers who want Facebook to simply adopt an established open source license, preferably just BSD, with no extra conditions.

The fact that Facebook has continued to ignore this sentiment tells me that it's no longer a place where developers have much influence. I personally don't want to contribute to or use open source software from such an entity.

But that's just my personal opinion. It's a shame, because I've been really impressed and happy with the work Facebook has done in the area of programming languages (Flow, Hack, HHVM, etc.).

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

Clearly you don't, because you've intentionally designed a license to allow you carte blanche to violate other companies' patents if they're dependent enough upon React to not be able to easily stop using it.

I think it's pretty clear how disingenuous this is since they don't even constrain the patent revocation to IP lawsuits.

If they were doing this in good faith they would want to scope this as tightly as they could, but this is clearly Facebook just trying to extract additional benefit from their OSS contributions.

eridius6• 9 years ago

Nice username ;)

spacetexas3• 9 years ago

Disappointed to see no forward upfront stance on what Facebook will do if someone sues them for a patent infringement unrelated to React in any way.

Will note though that if Facebook does choose to revoke a license on the basis of getting sued for something unrelated it will definitely reflect poorly on FB in the developer community and reduce React's adoption.

kbenson4• 9 years ago

Disappointed to see no forward upfront stance on what Facebook will do if someone sues them for a patent infringement unrelated to React in any way.

Well, they've specifically related React if it's in use, so the only case where it's not related is if isn't being used by the plaintiff.

In a similar vein, people are wondering what Facebook will do with patent infringement suits that do have merit, to which I ask, when's the last time a company defending a patent suit stated the plaintiff's case had merit.

valarauca1• 9 years ago

TLDR:

- They confirm Apache's legal reading of the BSD + Patents.

- They deny the part about Facebook being able to steal your IP because Facebook isn't like that.

- They refuse to codify changes to enforce Facebook isn't like that

- We therefore must assume Facebook is like that.

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

I think the reasoning that this will protect them against frivolous lawsuits is pretty poor; you only need a patent grant if you're actually building software. Patent trolls don't build anything so they have no need for patent grants.

jaxondu• 9 years ago

Facebook most likely is guarding it for strategic reason. My guess is it will built something like Expo into its Facebook/Messenger app, then it can have its own native app, games store without going through Apple. This is something WeChat already is running called mini-apps.

coldtea4• 9 years ago

Patent trolls don't build anything so they have no need for patent grants.

You'd be surprised. Patent trolls can have all forms, not just a only-suing company. Some company that has failed as a startup, but which holds 1-2 patents might decide to turn into patent-trolling to make a quick back while it dies.

Think also of companies like SCO.

Eridrus3• 9 years ago

Some company that has failed as a startup, but which holds 1-2 patents might decide to turn into patent-trolling to make a quick back while it dies.

If the startup is dead it should be trivial to transfer the patents to a separate entity and then sue from that entity, making counter-suits irrelevant.

This only has an affect on companies which are a going concern.

Companies who plan to make litigation part of their strategy can pretty easily just not use React.

This does the most harm to companies who were not planning to come into conflict with Facebook, and then do.

beager• 9 years ago

As I understand the asymmetry in the BSD+patents license, the real issue here is that usage of React significantly weakens you with respect to mounting a defense against Facebook for infringing upon your own patents or IP, a possibility which, given the stark example of Instagram Stories, is plainly plausible. (This is not to say that Instagram Stories is patent theft, but rather a propensity to copy ideas wholesale).

Were Facebook to amend that license to soften the criteria for revocation of the license grant in cases of suits against Facebook for infringement, this outrage might just go away. But as it stands now, Facebook stands to exercise an ability to infringe on others' patents for monetary gain so long as the patent holder uses React in deployment. It would be easy to weaponize this arrangement, and you have to assume that any fiduciary would consider it.

More broadly, this is a good case to be made against software patents in general.

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

Not really. Not necessarily. Patents aren't all created equal. The economic value you derive from using Facebook's open-source patent grants is probably not going to be higher than whatever patent suit you're bringing against Facebook (if you deem it necessary and have the millions to wage such a war).

talkingtab• 9 years ago

My worry is that the BSD+patent license puts FB in the position where they are able violate valid patents that another company hold. If that company is using React, they will have a strong incentive not to pursue their claims against FB because it means they would have to rewrite their code. Is this a valid concern?

joobus2• 9 years ago

The Facebook patents license, https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS , says:

The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent Assertion: ... (ii) against any party if such Patent Assertion arises in whole or in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates,

I always thought the main problem was this part, where you basically lose the license or your IP if Facebook ever decides to become your competitor, e.g. you start a company with a react front-end that does X, and then Facebook decides to directly copy your business. You have no recourse against Facebook, because if you sue them for infringing your IP, you lose the ability to use the React license.

nojvek2• 9 years ago

If Snapchat used React, Facebook would kill them to death because Snapchat couldn’t do much. They already mass copied snapchat’s Features.

Any sane aspiring developer would know not to give Facebook that much power.

neospice• 9 years ago

Is SNAP pursuing litigation in retaliation to this?

If not, then would it have mattered if they used React?

molecule• 9 years ago

Discussion of this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050705

jwingy2• 9 years ago

I wonder how Facebook would feel if all the open source software they currently use incorporated the same license. I bet it would deter them from enjoying much of the code they built their business on. This stance seems pretty antithetical to the goal and spirit of open source software and I really hope it's not the beginning of other companies following suit and 'poisoning' the well.

carussell7• 9 years ago

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 patent suits against anyone, because it means they are now violating the licenses of every piece of FOSS they're currently using. (I'm relying on the assumption that there's no entity that could perform an audit right now and conclude that there's not a single piece of FOSS underpinning their products/services/infrastructure.)

Licenses like Apache 2.0, MPL2, etc all have a "MAD" policy wrt patents, but they all have a gaping hole in their strategy. The React license patches this hole in a really clever way--probably the cleverest thing since the GPL's invention of copyleft to hack copyright law by using it against itself. It's really disappointing to see people's sense of disdain for Facebook overpower their ability to appreciate how clever the React license is.

Addendum from the last time [1] I commented: "FWIW, I don't use React, I don't want to, I'm not a Facebook employee, and in fact I think the world would be a lot better off with Facebook having less influence than they do today. But that doesn't change how weird it is to keep seeing comments like [those that frame the React terms in a negative light]".

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14780358

losvedir• 9 years ago

In fact, this is explicitly part of their reasoning, from the blog post linked to in the GitHub comment here:

We believe that if this license were widely adopted, it could actually reduce meritless litigation for all adopters, and we want to work with others to explore this possibility.

jasonkostempski2• 9 years ago

be a win for free/open source software

Any project with such a license would be non-free, so I'm not sure how that would be a win for free software.

kuschku2• 9 years ago

This is sadly false.

This would only neutralize patents of actual companies that have something to create.

The only ones left to hold patents would be patent trolls. This would just massively empower patent trolls, and harm everyone. Because patent trolls don’t have to license patents there’s no risk for them.

hardwaresofton6• 9 years ago

So this opinion almost swayed me, but the problem is that companies aren't scared of open source writers suing them.

If you use project A that was written by one or two developers in their spare time (and they included a BSD+patents) clause, would Facebook fear being sued by them? Probably not -- but new companies that get anywhere close to what Facebook does (increasingly, that's everything these days) definitely live with the real possibility of facebook suing them.

In theory the "no one is able to bring patent suits against anyone because they're violating licenses" is a good outcome (mostly the no patent suits part), but it doesn't quite stand up in practice because patent suits cost money, and bigger companies can sue you longer than you can sue them. I don't want a world where MAD is the default, because the large companies carry nukes, and I carry a peashooter.

I will no longer use react on any new projects.

paxy2• 9 years ago

and would be a huge win for free/open source software

It would be a huge win for companies with large software patent portfolios, which is the opposite of what the free software movement is about.

cbuq3• 9 years ago

If mutually assured destruction is your definition of peace...

But what prevents everyone from becoming patent infringers in this scenario?

DannyBee5• 9 years ago

"it's a world where no one is able to bring patent suits against anyone, because it means they are now violating the licenses of every piece of FOSS they're currently using."

It's also a world where entrenched companies can feel free to use whatever technology they want from smaller competitors without fear of lawsuit, and use it to further entrench themselves :)

I'd put a lot more money on that happening than "happy fun kumbaya singing".

This is among the many reasons that apache, et al chose not to use them when revving their licenses. It's totally worth reading the discussions that happened around these issues back then.

As a friend said WRT to this issue: "Everything old is new again"

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

If the goal were to get rid of software patents, why don't all the large tech companies just band together and lobby against allowing patents for software? (more like Europe) This looks more like a sneaky trick by Facebook.

cyphar7• 9 years ago

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 copyright (as you noted), and Apache helped step forward on the patent front. I would love to say that the React license helped further this cause. Unfortunately I don't agree, and it's for several reasons.

* This may sound like a minor point, but the React patent license only applies to Facebook's patents, and relies on Facebook retaliating. Code contributed by anyone else may not be giving you the same protection, which means that if they sue someone other than Facebook the target has no real protection. 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). By only terminating the patent license, you're relying on Facebook suing the offensive party.

* As with almost all patents, Facebook makes it exceptionally explicit that independent discoveries will not be protected. While this is to be expected because it's the default patent law position, it's not exactly what you want if you're going to try to sell me on this being "an ingenious, anti-patent license".

* The patent license clearly favours protecting Facebook over the wider software community. The fact that suits "(i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates," will result in termination means that the license is incredibly asymmetric in it's protection. The problem is that the "more free" stance of extending this protection to every user of the software would be too strong of a stance for companies to take (it would mean that no company could sue any other over patents in fear of being vulnerable to Facebook's patent portfolio). Not to mention that it still wouldn't solve the patent problem, you'd need to fix my first point and make it apply to all patents by all users. And then it would be seen as an incredibly risky business decision.

* By definition the patent grant cannot be used against Facebook, because of the above protections are not provided. If Facebook sues you over a patent unrelated to React, you cannot counter-sue them for any patents they may be infringing because then you'd be giving them more ammunition. This is where your comparison to the GPL falls flat for me. The GPL does protect users in this situation.

I understand that these might seem like "perfect being the enemy of good", but you have to consider that Facebook's dominant position is what makes these sorts of discussions critical. Sun made some mistakes in the CDDL, and we're still living with those mistakes to this day thanks to the whole Oracle OpenSolaris fiasco (though it went better than we could've hoped). We need to be far more careful in how we evaluate software licenses, and thinking about doomsday scenarios is crucial. If Facebook became a bad actor, would this patent license be better or worse for the community than Apache 2 or GPLv3?

Lazare19• 9 years ago

I wonder how Facebook would feel if all the open source software they currently use incorporated the same license.

I'm pretty sure they'd be thrilled. That seems to be their aim.

I bet it would deter them from enjoying much of the code they built their business on.

Why? Serious question; I just don't see why Facebook would care.

slackoverflower• 9 years ago

Of course they release this late on a Friday so it is does not get much reach. Facebook is very very evil - in every part of the company. Copying other's ideas (Snapchat) yet trying to stop other companies from copying them (this licensing).

bdcravens4• 9 years ago

I don't see it as "released". It's just the closing of a Github issue, not a press release.

Do you feel that if a company is "evil", do you feel there's a moral imperative to not use their products? It seems to me there's a lot of "But React!" going on.

inopinatus• 9 years ago

It's an interesting question. I actually do feel that way, and this was a significant factor in choosing to use Vue.js for my next project over both React & Angular.

haeffin3• 9 years ago

They put out a facebook post at about the same time that is something like a press release though.

Xoros• 9 years ago

The post linked is from 4 hours ago. So yes it's a late Friday statement.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

They're not stopping anyone from copying them. In fact, they're saying please, use our code and use our patents...just don't sue us! How hard is that to understand?

jwingy2• 9 years ago

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

I completely agree that the Facebook BSD+PATENTS license is antithetical to the goal and spirit of open source software. And that is why the Apache Foundation rejected it it. I'd like to see more statements by more groups like the FSF and OSI on that.

RyanShook• 9 years ago

I have my doubts about the enforceability of BSD+Patents in a courtroom setting.

I think it's an intimidation play on the part of Facebook to keep large players from profiting off of their IP.

gstein6713• 9 years ago

There is a lot of confusion with regards to one point: the Apache Software Foundation did not make a request for a license change.

The Foundation does not presuppose to know how others should license their products. That is those others' choice. The Foundation does have policies on what licenses can be used, within the Foundation's projects. But that is for our projects, and not the same as pushing back against license holders.

So please. Stop with the meme of "Facebook rejected the Foundation's request". Not true. Facebook made a business choice, and the Apache Software Foundation will make its own choices.

The request came from one our projects' committers. Please do not confuse who speaks for whom.

devdoomari4• 9 years ago

it's not 'rejection' that's bothering ppl... most ppl don't care about 'rejection' whether it happened or not.

ralmidani2• 9 years ago

For someone like me, (Free Software advocate, Ember user looking for a breath of fresh air--and better job prospects--with React), it all boils down to doing a cost-benefit analysis.

Sweeping conclusions like "you have nothing to worry about" or "you should never use software with such a license" do not apply to everyone.

As a Free Software advocate, I abhor troll-like behavior, regardless of whether the vehicle is patents, copyrights, or anything else.

I am also more likely to benefit from potential patents contained in a project like React than I am to ever 1) Own a patent. 2) Have a company use that patent in a way I find harmful and offensive. 3) Have the resources to sue an internet giant.

So for me, it's probably worth it to use React, although I can understand why others insist on a more cautious approach.

One thing Facebook could do that would inspire confidence (not to mention make the company a champion of free innovation) is to enumerate which patents the company owns and release all of them under the Defensive Patent License [0].

Such a move would require a lot of courage, but Facebook is large enough and entrenched enough that they would probably gain much more than they could potentially lose.

[0] https://defensivepatentlicense.org

falcolas5• 9 years ago

Is React really free software? It's free as in beer, but you have to give up a lot of rights completely unrelated to React in order to use it.

Sure, it may never be a problem (it probably won't be a problem for 99.9% or more of those who use it), but who is willing to take that chance with the future of their company?

ralmidani2• 9 years ago

Facebook doesn't deny you the freedoms of using the software without restriction, studying it, modifying it, and distributing it (with or without your modifications).

I personally wish FB would release even more of their platforms as free software, preferably under (A/L)GPL3 or MPL 2 or Apache 2. But we do not live in a perfect world. Even the folks at FSF made some compromises regarding the wording of the patent provisions in the GPL3 family, in order to get more companies to adopt the licenses [0].

I am sure the folks at FB know the first time they abuse the patent stipulations, a lot of people using React will jump ship.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/compromise.html

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

I'm not sure if React (and the other projects that contain the PATENTS file) will survive the backlash to this in the long run. Vue.js is rapidly climbing in popularity, and Elm is probably going to go mainstream in 2018. There are alternatives like Mithril and Ember too.

threatofrain4• 9 years ago

Elm going mainstream?! What a prediction!

devdoomari4• 9 years ago

yeah I doubt about elm, but vue is definitely catching up.

kevinflo4• 9 years ago

I love love love love love react as a technology, but this is just awful. I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop. I personally feel like such a fool for not taking all this seriously before the ASF gave me a wakeup call. React is a trojan horse into the open source community that Facebook purposely and maliciously steered over time to deepen their war chest. Maybe that's an overblown take, but they had a perfect opportunity here to prove me wrong and they didn't. The defensive cover they present here feels so paper thin.

Even if we paint all of their actions in the most favorable possible light, and even if the clause is a paper tiger as some have claimed, it doesn't matter. This is not how open source should work. We should not have to debate for years if a project's license is radioactive. Especially individual devs like myself who just want to use a great tool. We should be able to just use it, because it's open and that's what open means. This is so much worse than closed. It's closed masquerading as open.

devdoomari4• 9 years ago

+1 on this.

I'm going for Preact (https://github.com/developit/preact) for React alternative.

khuey• 9 years ago

If React really is covered by patents Facebook has then Preact is likely infringing on them since it does the same things in similar ways. And Preact doesn't come with a patent grant from Facebook at all.

WalterSear5• 9 years ago

Could anyone with experience porting from one to the other let us know how it went?

thesagan2• 9 years ago

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.

tannhaeuser• 9 years ago

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 into developer's minds via obscene venture capital budgets.

hajile5• 9 years ago

https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/0.11-stable/LICENSE

Turns out that forking a somewhat recent version of React that uses Apache is possible while still retaining any relevant patents (esp pending vdom patents) and API compatibility.

lobster_johnson• 9 years ago

0.11 is three years old, though. Not really recent.

kevinflo4• 9 years ago

https://github.com/kevinflo/react-open at least to play around with for my own purposes. I forget what the state of things even was back in .11

freewizard• 9 years ago

Any suggestion on an open source & high quality alternatives for a large existing code base depending on React?

gedy3• 9 years ago

Preact with preact-compat is (almost) a drop-in replacement for existing React code: https://preactjs.com/guide/switching-to-preact

drieddust6• 9 years ago

Agreed and there is no reason to still stick with react when alternatives like vuejs and angular are available.

Its not that great anyways when compared to angular 2/4. There are too many concepts to be mastered and it soon become overwhelming. I tried learning react but dropped it after spending a week when I still could not understand routing. Sense of cohesiveness between different concepts is missing. I believe some learning junkies may get the kick out of it but that's not me. My time is better spent elsewhere.

Angular on the other hand introduces everything one single tutorials[1] to make one productive. Deep dive later can be done later on when required.

[1] https://angular.io/tutorial

Edit: minor typo

WalterSear5• 9 years ago

React doesn't do routing. It's a view library.

And for me, the opposite was true vis-a-vis Angular and React, though got as far as making contributions to the Angular 2 tools before I decided to jumping ship.

EduardoBautista• 9 years ago

React Native is what I believe to be the big thing in the React community. I haven't hear of anything similar in the Angular or Vue ecosystems.

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

React Router v4 is dead simple: https://medium.com/@pshrmn/a-simple-react-router-v4-tutorial...

It's just React components up and down.

Most of the concepts that you must learn with React have to do with understanding JavaScript. If you know JS, you know 80% of what you need to know.

rtpg• 9 years ago

vue and angular don't offer the same typing guarantees as React.

Though I use Angular in my day-to-day, I would really love to be in React land for that reason alone. I've had too many interface bugs due to simple template typos

qaq4• 9 years ago

Angular does not come with a patent grant at all. Vue most likely is infringing on FB patents anyway. So what is the win exactly?

tmat3• 9 years ago

Angular is nothing like React. It's garbage in comparison.

stephen82• 9 years ago

Well, I planned to learn more about React, but reading now this convinced me to learn Vue.js instead.

It's under MIT license developed by a single person in addition to community's contribution.

This link is rather interesting https://vuejs.org/v2/guide/comparison.html#React

kdamken• 9 years ago

Finishing up a project at work with Vue right now, and I gotta say it's really excellent to work with. Way more intuitive than some other frameworks out there.

tribby3• 9 years ago

you've made a great choice. forget about patents: vue is a joy to use. can't say the same about react, personally.

also check out nuxt.js, a small abstraction layer on top of vue that has some opinions about file structure and also makes SSR a breeze https://nuxtjs.org/

unkown-unknowns• 9 years ago

Alternatively there's this: https://github.com/developit/preact

Preact is a fast 3kB alternative to React, with the same ES2015 API as that of React.

Preact is MIT licensed and does not have any additional conditions beyond that.

shams932• 9 years ago

Yeah my current gig is steering clear of react because of the patent issue but we are embracing Vue and vuex.

dcposch• 9 years ago

Check out Preact. It's an API compatible, lightweight React alternative that is actual free software.

As a bonus, it's a lot smaller, just 3kb minified

https://preactjs.com/

whatl3y• 9 years ago

I made the same decision about 1-2 months ago for the same reason, and after scaffolding my project from the CLI, creating some components, and adding additional pieces I needed (vue-router, vuex, dev server proxying to my backend, etc.), Vue has been an absolute pleasure to work with.

jondubois2• 9 years ago

Or there is Google's Polymer framework. In my opinion, Polymer is better than React and Vue. I could never bring myself to use React because of its liense terms.

candu• 9 years ago

FWIW, I've been using Vue for the last couple of projects and have been extremely satisfied.

coetry• 9 years ago

I haven't had to change to really play around with it, but cycle.js (https://cycle.js.org/) is another option alongside Vue and Preact

zackbrown• 9 years ago

I remember sitting in the front row at ngEurope (Angular conf) back in 2014, when Misko announced that Angular 2 would be a (breaking) API rewrite vs Angular 1. At that time, Angular was perhaps at its global maximum of community mind share—bigger than React!—and its popularity began to sink afterwards in large part due to that PR snafu.

I wonder if this is React's "Angular 2." What's worse, the misstep this time is due to ham-fisted corporate mal- stewardship, not just miscommunicated technical good intentions. Vue is similarly positioned to be the "next thing" in the way React was three years ago. My how this space churns.

Bahamut• 9 years ago

Coming from the Angular community & still connected quite a bit to it despite currently working primarily with React, I don’t think having an incremental change would have helped Angular compared to React due to the complexity of Angular.js’s API & its flaws. I actually stand by quite strongly behind the decision to rewrite in Angular 2, but Angular 2 took a long time to come into being - it was rewritten 3+ times in getting to its current state & 3-4 years in the making. I think Google devoted the proper resources too late into it in its quest to make the most performant & flexible framework. I believe this gap is what largely hurt Angular, and while the PR snafu was visible, I think the current situation would have been arrived at regardless.

rogihee• 9 years ago

I'm still working heavily with AngularJS (1) and in combination with components (1.5+), TypeScript and a MVVM approach it is very clean and productive. Even for all its flaws, it still very easy to start with in 10mins, include 1 lib in 1 line and "Hello World" is up and running.

Compare that to the space ship Angular 2. They really made an outstanding effort to create a huge barrier of entry for anyone not having a degree in DevOps. I'm an old fart, I don't need your stinking CLI, Grunt, Gulp, NPM etc stuff.

Compare that to Vue.js really shines in this regard with the same level of entry as AngularJS. For me that is part of what I thinks makes it a succes.

When choosing a new framework I tend to not look for the future, but look in the past. I chose what was mainstream 2-3 years ago, which means right now still AngularJS for me. This means I'm a leecher on StackOverflow, but so be it. I have my own company and clients pay me for working applications, which means I have to choose my tools as efficient and effective as possible. By choosing last years model, it is less sexy but will get me from A to B with the same speed plus added reliability. At the same time I'm keeping a close look to Vue.js and if still going in the same direction next year as it is now, I will definitely switch to it.

Strom2• 9 years ago

I believe any developer not on Facebook's payroll still contributing to React or React native at this point has a moral obligation to stop.

I've contributed to React before and will continue to do so. I haven't seen a single reason why not to. Just because React doesn't use your favorite license? Well this may shock you but I also use and help develop closed source software. In my view there is nothing morally wrong here. What's more, it's not even clear which morals you think I would be failing by continuing to contribute to React.

jlrubin• 9 years ago

closed source

That's not really the problem here. The problem is that by using React, even in a closed source context, you are potentially setting yourself up to not successfully make an IP claim against facebook, even for unrelated technologies.

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

Just because React doesn't use your favorite license?

No, that's not the problem for many(most?) of us. The problem is that Facebook has decided to throw out innovative extra conditions to an old and established license. Innovation is typically not a good thing with open source licenses. It just throws a lot of uncertainty and confusion onto the situation, and for what gain? In fact, no one has any clue how this patent grant will work in practice.

If we believe the minimalist interpretation that some people are proposing here, Facebook has gained virtually nothing here. And that fact in itself makes people suspicious, because why would they dig in for almost no gain?

shafyy• 9 years ago

Completely agree. Everyone here is acting as suing Facebook (and suing successfully) is something that will happen to all of them with great probability.

Why do you even care? It's a great framework and if you don't want to use it under the license then don't. But why ranting about they should change the license?

I can understand why FB is licensing the way they do. I also would be pissed off if I would get sued for some nonsense all the time and would take an opportunity to potentially reduce that.

djsumdog• 9 years ago

I agree. I also wonder, does the Patents section apply in New Zealand? They banned software patents at a central government level.

Maybe we need groups who can push to lobby for legislation to remove software patents in more countries?

IanKelling9• 9 years ago

if a project's license is radioactive

It's not a copyright license. It's a patent grant/license which is completely independent. This matters for several reasons, including when just saying "license", this usually means a copyright license.

If this patent 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, no, you'd have a bsd license with no patent grant like you probably do with tons of other free software your company uses. Clearly, people should be complaining about that if they are complaining about this, but the misunderstanding and misinformation is really strong. If you believe software patents are universally bad, like many people including me, then it is clearly better using the MIT/BSD license alone, which gives you zero patent rights, you are simply infringing and waiting to be sued. I have no problem with it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html.

kevinflo4• 9 years ago

I've seen it pointed out before though that it would fall back to just the BSD license and others countered saying that was definitely not the case. It seems to be yet another fundamental thing about this that isn't clear or agreed upon at all. Still, your point is important and I hope people read it and consider it.

Also by "license" I meant the "BSD + Patents license" as the Facebook writeup put it.

mygo9• 9 years ago

I think you're missing the plot. Currently, there is a big philosophical debate on whether OSS licenses like the BSD include an implicit patent grant. When Facebook explicitly includes a revocable patent grant, your argument of the BSD license "with no patent grant" is self-fulfilling. But if the PATENTS file had never existed, then what you have is "a BSD license with a potentially implicit patent grant", which has never been tried in court so could set a precedence, but is waaaay better for the consumer than a "BSD license with no patent grant because that patent grant has been explicitly granted and now revoked".

IanKelling9• 9 years ago

better using

I meant to write "better than using." Also, I was not aware of the implied patent license argument.

patrickaljord2• 9 years ago

Here's a list of companies using React:

- Microsoft - Uber - Yahoo Mail - Dropbox - Airbnb - Netflix - NY Times

If they're ok with the license, you probably shouldn't worry too much. Basically, if you don't own any patents or if your company is smaller than any of the above, you should be ok.

throwaway13337• 9 years ago

You don't know that they weren't granted separate licensing deals.

I assume they were.

This license is likely to protect facebook against patent litigation that a startup might claim facebook is in violation of.

It's not too hard to imagine a scenario where the next snapchat-like-startup is using react native. Facebook is then in a super leveraged position against them legally.

Snap stories are now facebook stories, instagram stories, and whatsapp stories. It's not such a big leap that it'll happen again.

andrewaylett• 9 years ago

All these companies are big enough to potentially have a separate patent agreement with Facebook. I don't have any insider knowledge about them (or anyone else, for that matter) to say whether they do, but you should entertain the possibility rather than assuming their risks are greater than yours.

mundanevoice• 9 years ago

This is a very dangerous follower mentality. You and I are not in the league of these big companies. If FB sues them they have deep enough pockets to fight back. But we, we would just vanish into thin air.

thebigspacefuck3• 9 years ago

Come on, everybody's doing it...

Anyway, it's not up to me, it's up to the legal team and they are saying "No".

Zenbit_UX4• 9 years ago

Source for Microsoft? I once read an article saying that Google, Apple & Microsoft forbade all their developers from even using React due to its licence and this was years ago.

madeofpalk• 9 years ago

We should be able to just use it, because it's open and that's what open means.

You can. What's stopping you?

christophilus• 9 years ago

We need to start promoting a single great alternative. My vote is Preact.

logicallee• 9 years ago

but this is just awful.

Everyone in this whole thread is saying the same thing. For anyone not up to speed, I found the following explanation of the issue (analysis of the license) very good and short:

https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Faceboo...

This lets you know why we have 300+ comments saying the same thing.

stephenhuey• 9 years ago

I'm with you. Check out Aurelia which is under the MIT license:

http://aurelia.io/

I'm surprised at how many companies are willing to embrace frameworks that they believe come from Facebook and Google but are not truly backed by those companies. Aurelia has commercial backing and community contributors and a decent license.

prewett• 9 years ago

any developer contributing ... has a moral obligation to stop

Oh, come off it!

If you went to some company and got a patent license, and then proceeded to sue that company for patent infringement on an unrelated patent, they would terminate your license. (That's what cross licensing prevents.) So FB is granting React users a patent license free. Why wouldn't they revoke the license if you were suing them? There's no difference from the normal state of affairs except the patent license is free. Now, if you are worried about FB infringing on your patents, it's wisest not to use React, but that's no different than licensing a patent from someone else.

rothbardrand• 9 years ago

I think a good principle is to never assume malicious intent, but never tolerate an abusive position either.

So, Facebook, lets assume, isn't being malicious and genuinely feels this is the right approach to deal with what they consider to be "meritless" lawsuits... but at the same time, if this response-- genuine as it may be-- gives them abusive power, don't abide it.

Similar principle for politicians-- never support Obama/Trump having a power you wouldn't want Trump/Obama wielding.

For any aspect of power, assume the most abusive historical figure has it-- should they have it? IF not then don't grant it to even people you like.

thecrazyone10• 9 years ago

That would just lead to under-utilization (if that's the right phrase for it) of power.

At most situations you might be assigning improbable risks to things. If you have a reason to believe someone is not going to abuse power, then giving them said power should be okay in real life

Edit: May I add that you're swinging from one extreme to the other. Things need not be black/white. It's a fallacy all on its own

haeffin3• 9 years ago

I like that we clearly include a patent license in our repo. IMO it would be nice if more companies would choose this route too.

I don't get this. The Apache2 license also has a section on patents ...

CodeWriter234• 9 years ago

Yes. And it says you lose the rights Apache granted you if you litigate any of the patents granted by Apache. Facebook's says you lose license to their patents if you litigate or even have shares in a company that litigates against Facebook for ANY patent. It's completely different. And toxic.

antoncohen5• 9 years ago

Facebook's license is no more dangerous than regular MIT or BSD-style licenses. If you are OK with using MIT or BSD licensed software you should be OK with using Facebook's BSD + Patents software.

Here is why:

MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement.

If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you.

Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license.

The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection.

Major software like Ruby (BSD), Rails (MIT), and FreeBSD (BSD) use licenses without patent grants. Entire businesses are built on top of these pieces of software, e.g., GitHub (Ruby and Rails) and a lot of commercial hardware built on FreeBSD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...).

Read the patent grant for yourself:

https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS

hajile5• 9 years ago

They have implicit patent grants while Facebook's does not.

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

antoncohen5• 9 years ago

I don't see how that changes anything. If you sue Facebook you lose the explicit patent grant, but you are still left with a BSD license that allows "redistribution and use in source and binary forms", so you still have the implicit patent grant.

saghm• 9 years ago

I don't do any webdev, so I have no horse in this race, but I find it plausible that some developers would be more worried about Facebook infringing their patents than the respective organizations that develop Ruby, Rails, and FreeBSD.

mcbits2• 9 years ago

I've read it, and I'm pretty sure it says that if you initiate a patent lawsuit against Facebook, you lose the license to use React at all. It doesn't revert to BSD. (EDIT: Apparently that's wrong although the license could certainly be more clear about it.)

If React doesn't implement any of their patents, the patent clause offers nothing extra. If it does, it would be damned nice to know which one(s). Do other libraries (other virtual DOMs, perhaps) infringe?

antoncohen5• 9 years ago

No, you lose the patent license, not the copyright license.

From Facebook's blog post:

The patent grant says that if you're going to use the software we've released under it, you lose the patent license from us if you sue us for patent infringement.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...

silentstreet• 9 years ago

https://code.facebook.com/license-faq which they published a year or so ago explicitly says you keep the BSD license.

quickben2• 9 years ago

It's deeper than that.

Say you are a company A, and have product P that uses react.

You find out that company B infringed on a patent in your other product Q.

You sue B.

It turns out B is owned by FB.

Your product P is in trouble.

fhrow44847• 9 years ago

Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license.
The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection.

Could you provide a citation backing up your claims?

if you read the patent grant for yourself:

https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS

There's no mention of any patent grant coming with the software

> "The license granted hereunder will terminate"

"The license" here is the one defined as:

> Facebook, Inc. ("Facebook") hereby grants to each recipient of the Software ("you") a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any Necessary Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software

and the "Sofware" here is the one defined as :

> "Software" means the React software distributed by Facebook, Inc.

delinka4• 9 years ago

You left out the definition of "Necessary Claims":

> A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone.

jancsika• 9 years ago

Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license.

I see no reason to assume that it reverts "back to a normal plain old BSD license" in such a case.

The article linked by Stallman's response that this is a nonfree license doesn't make that assumption, either:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

DannyBee5• 9 years ago

"MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement. " Every single lawyer i've ever spoken to strongly believes implied licenses will protect you very well here. Like, among us open source lawyers, it's pretty much the one thing people agree on.

"If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you."

This is just flat out false, and i'm not sure why you believe this. The termination is broader than the grant. The grant is for patents in a given piece of software, the termination crosses all software.

Concretely: if you use react, and they sue you over patents in notreact, and you countersue, you do not lose your react patent license. They are still welcome to sue you over notreact, there is nothing in this license that will prevent that from happening. It only gave you patent rights to react.

(It also says that if you sue them over notreact, you will lose all patent licenses in all software that use this license, which is why the termination is broader than the grant).

"The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection."

This is also an incorrect legal statement.

Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. In this case, the terms of the implied grant were much better for people than the terms of the explicit one. So you are, in fact, losing something

antoncohen5• 9 years ago

Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished.

The BSD license grants explicit rights to use the software, thereby granting implicit rights to use the patents in the software while using the software as it is intended to be used.

The sentence "redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted" doesn't go away because there is an "additional grant of patent rights".

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

The problem is that your MIT licensed open source library is not guaranteed to not be in violation of any software patents that may exist in the wild. If Company A publishes an open source library that happens to violate Company B's patents...then Company A's MIT license is not going to protect you against Company B's patent.

IanKelling9• 9 years ago

Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished.

Citation needed. And if you aren't planning to sue over software patents, then the author is clearly correct that this is strictly better than BSD/MIT alone.

CodeWriter234• 9 years ago

Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license.

Um, no. Let's say you own patent A and Facebook has granted you rights to patents B and C. Then let's say Facebook infringes your patent A and you sue them. You lose the license to use patents B and C. That's what the PATENTS file says. Read it. What it doesn't say is because Facebook is publicly traded, it has a fiduciary duty to shareholders to defend all of its intellectual property so if you continue using anything covered by a Facebook PATENTS grant, you better be prepared to be sued for patent infringement. There is no implicit patent grant in the BSD license. Nothing in the BSD license shields the user of BSD-licensed software from patent litigation brought by any party.

pdfernhout14• 9 years ago

From a lawyer: https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Faceboo... "True, the BSD License does not explicitly state that the licensee receives the right to use the licensed software under the licensor’s patents.* But I’ve never heard any lawyer postulate that that document does not grant a license to fully exploit the licensed software under all of the licensor’s intellectual property. Anyone who pushes that view is thinking too hard."

k__• 9 years ago

That's how far the framework war has come. FUD about licensing when they can't win with technical finesse anymore.

whipoodle2• 9 years ago

That is my sense as well.

tomelders2• 9 years ago

The problem is that the descision to use react is not longer a descision for the developers in an organisation. It's now a descision for the legal team. And thats not good.

This is the situation I now find myself in. The next few months will be spent removing react and immutable from the project I'm working on because th legal department say so.

This is quite frankly, bullshit.

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

Have you looked into preact? For most projects, it's just a few lines in webpack. Immutable js is different, but shouldn't be that much work.

web007• 9 years ago

I don't understand ASF's position on this. How is FB-BSD+P different from CDDL 1.1, which includes section 6.2 regarding termination of patent rights in the event of a suit?

Steeeve3• 9 years ago

ASF's license limits it's scope. ASF software cannot carry dependencies on licenses that have wider scope than their license. In addition to the scope, the FB license is very one-sided.

As such, ASF decided to disallow FB licensed dependencies. One particular ASF project did not have an alternative, so they asked FB to re-license. FB agreed to do so.

Because it was easy, and because the positive talk surrounding FB's license seemed to intimate that FB's intention was the same as ASF's license intention, they requested FB to relicense react so that it too could be included as a dependency on ASF projects.

Faced with making a decision, FB determined that their licensing strategy associated with litigation was more important than their ability to be included in ASF projects.

A lot of eyes were watching the request, many hopeful that the FB decision would justify and clarify their interpretation of the FB license and it's intentions. FB disappointed them though, and basically said "bugger off if you don't like it. We'll lose people, but we don't think it will be that many."

Judging from this discussion - and the fact that HN is one of the most pro-react communities around - this decision will not play out kindly and could be the death-knell of react's position as a major force in UI development.

DannyBee5• 9 years ago

So, i feel for them, having watched Google's open source projects be targeted by patent trolls in the past. But i really don't think this is the way forward.

A few things:

1. If you want to suggest you are doing this as part of an attempt to avoid meritless litigation, you really should give concrete examples of that happening. Otherwise, it comes off as a smoke screen.

2. The assertion is that if widely adopted, it would avoid lots of meritless litigation. This is a theoretically possible outcome. Here's another theoretically possible outcome of wide adoption of this kind of very broad termination language: Facebook is able to use other people's technology at will because nobody can afford to not use their stuff, and no startup that they decide to take technology from, and say "no more facebook/react/etc for you" could realistically launch an effective lawsuit before they died. Assume for a second you think Facebook is not likely to do this. If widely adopted, someone will do it. Nobody should have to worry about this possibility when considering whether to adopt particular open source software.

(there are other theoretical outcomes, good and bad).

It's also worth pointing out: None of this is a new discussion or argument. All of the current revisions of the major licenses (Apache v2, GPLv3) went through arguments about whether to use these kinds of broader termination clauses (though not quite as one sided and company focused), and ultimately decided not to, for (IMHO good) reasons. I'm a bit surprised this isn't mentioned or discussed anywhere.

These kinds of clauses are not a uniform net positive, they are fairly bimodal.

fhrow44847• 9 years ago

That's a good point, especially since the concrete examples won't possibly be about patent trolls. Why would patent trolls (aka Non practicing entities) care about loosing rights "to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the [React] Software". (as defined in https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933...)?

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

Look at Oracle v. Google...that was a mess. Samsung v. Apple...also a mess. Not all patent litigation is from trolls alone.

TimTheTinker3• 9 years ago

Excellent point about NPEs (patent trolls). I think this comment gets to the absolute heart of the matter more than any other that I've seen.

carussell7• 9 years ago

no startup that they decide to take technology from, and say "no more react (or whatever) for you" could realistically launch an effective lawsuit before they died

If it's the case that these startups wouldn't have the resources to mount an effective lawsuit, then that's true regardless, no? Whatever the React terms say are moot. (I might be misunderstanding; the sentence is one that's hard to parse.)

All of the current revisions of the major licenses (Apachev2, GPLv3) went through arguments about whether to use these kinds of clauses (though not quite as one sided and company focused), and ultimately decided not to.

When MPL2 was being drafted, I pointed out that a strong, React-like approach to patents would be better, because the protection that Apache 2.0 offers against patents is very narrow. My takeaway was that the reason not to do so was because it wouldn't have been politically expedient at the time—it would just result in people rejecting the MPL. If Facebook is now taking that approach, then run with it now; it suggests the idea should be opened back up for reconsideration in future revisions of these licenses because they can capitalize on the momentum.

sverhagen• 9 years ago

To your second point, wouldn't there be a tremendous amount of startups who aren't interested in being in the patents business, or that would otherwise not own the patents over which to sue Facebook, that would thus not be able to get into this position, or did I just completely misunderstand the issue?

kavok5• 9 years ago

Investors seem to be really fond of patentable or protectable technology. Lets say a start up comes up with a really clever and novel way to accurately predict what kind of a cake a person likes best. If they built a platform in React and then Facebook stole the idea - they couldn't sue Facebook (or any Facebook subsidiaries) without immediately revoking the ability to use React.

This isn't only covering Facebook - this covers subsidiaries or subsidiaries etc..

Flenser• 9 years ago

Here's another theoretically possible outcome of wide adoption of something without any patent licence:

Google is able to use other people's technology at will because nobody can afford to not use their stuff, and no startup that they decide to take technology from, and say "no more Google/Angular/Closure Library/etc for you" could realistically launch an effective lawsuit before they died.

0xbear• 9 years ago

Hopefully it'll take all those half assed React Native apps with it.

paradite• 9 years ago

Angular is terrible.

React is trojan horse.

Vue is developed by Chinese.

And I honestly just want a decent framework to write JavaScript. Maybe the framework war is just getting started after all.

Edit: I'm just summarizing and projecting the sentiments around the popular frameworks and wondering about the future, not sure why I got so much hate...

RomanPushkin• 9 years ago

Anyone knows what are consequences of ban from Apache Software Foundation? Okay, it has X-Cat exclusion by August, 31 (https://react-etc.net/entry/apache-foundation-bans-use-of-fa...) and what will happen after that?

gtirloni• 9 years ago

https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html

"Can Apache projects distribute components under prohibited licenses?

Apache projects cannot distribute any such components. This means that no source code can be from Category X and that any convenience binaries produced may not include such contents. As with the previous question on platforms, the component can be relied on if the component's license terms do not affect the Apache product's licensing. For example, using a GPL'ed tool during the build is OK, however including GPL'ed source code is not"

gstein6713• 9 years ago

Note that this only applies to projects from the Apache Software Foundation. Its policies do not affect outside projects, including those using the ALv2.

After August 31, no Apache projects can make a release that has a hard dependency/requirement on the FB/BSD+Patents license (same as for all other licenses described as Cat-X). Older releases will remain in the archives, but no new releases with such dependencies.

itsbits• 9 years ago

I am no pro in understanding these licensing issue. Can someone help me how this affects if i) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for their proprietor software? ii) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for their distributed licensing software? iii) ReactJS is used in a company/organisation for a software which is opensourced?

rockdoe5• 9 years ago

If you use React you basically can't sue Facebook for infringing your patents, so it is giving them a free pass on your IP.

gstein6713• 9 years ago

Of course you can sue them. It just comes with consequences.

bsimpson• 9 years ago

like some other large companies do and only release software that isn't used in our most successful products

Closure Compiler [1], GWT [2], and protobufs [3] would like to have a word...

I realize they said "some" large companies, but it seems like there's plenty of precedent for successful tech companies to release core infrastructure as open source.

[1] https://developers.google.com/closure/compiler/

[2] http://www.gwtproject.org/

[3] https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/

tuxracer• 9 years ago

Just as a thought experiment if every piece of software had a similar clause in their license it would mark the end of software patents. Isn't this what we actually want more of? Isn't _that_ actually the moral high ground?

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

If that were Facebook's goal, why wouldn't they just team up with a few other large companies and lobby for abolishing software patents in the US?

sanxiyn3• 9 years ago

I actually think this is Facebook's goal. As for your question, I think they aren't trying to abolish software patents in the US because they judge (IMO correctly) that it is unlikely to succeed.

neilparikh• 9 years ago

What I don't really understand is if they're worried about patent trolls, how would this have any effect at all?

Patent trolls are companies that don't create anything, and just sue with their patent portfolio instead, so why would they care that they can't use react patents anymore?

jjm• 9 years ago

This is the kind of thing that makes devs start new projects that look really close to projects that run this course. You know, just to spite this act.

Scaevolus3• 9 years ago

Almost all of Facebook's "open source" code has the same PATENTS file, which makes them toxic if you can imagine a future where Facebook infringes one of your patents: https://github.com/search?p=5&q=org%3Afacebook+filename%3APA...

This includes things far outside the React ecosystem:

    - Flow (JS type checker, like TypeScript)
    - prepack (JS optimizing transpiler)
    - a bunch of Android/iOS UI/debugging frameworks,
    - all their GraphQL libraries (server/client)
    - their machine learning work (mostly targeting Torch)
    - Reason (statically typed programming language that transpiles to JS/OCaml)
    - ZSTD, a highly competitive compression algorithm.

Disclaimer: I work at Google on Kubernetes (which is Apache licensed). This is my personal opinion. I am frustrated with software with trivially incompatible licenses.

sanxiyn3• 9 years ago

I am very happy to report that ZSTD removed PATENTS clause: https://github.com/facebook/zstd/pull/801

rockdoe5• 9 years ago

This is huge.

hobofan2• 9 years ago

RocksDB too.

That really makes it seem like Facebooks stance is: "As long as we have a few really huge projects that infiltrate most companies' codebases, our 'smaller' projects can drop the patent clause".

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

What the hell? None of this makes any sense. What is Facebook up too?

IanKelling9• 9 years ago

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, no, you'd have a bsd license with no patent grant like you probably do with tons of other free software your company uses. Clearly, people should be complaining about that if they are complaining about this, but the misunderstanding and misinformation is really strong. If you believe software patents are universally bad, like many people including me, then it is clearly better using the MIT/BSD license alone, which gives you zero patent rights, you are simply infringing and waiting to be sued. I have no problem with it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.en.html.

Scaevolus3• 9 years ago

A patent grant is a license.

The patent license is indeed independent of the copyright license, but it's troubling enough that multiple legal teams (Apache and Google, at least) don't want to entangle themselves with it.

I'm doubtful that any licensing scheme can significantly drive patent reform. Lobbying and legal precedents hold that capability.

jnbiche17• 9 years ago

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.

Teknoman117• 9 years ago

Just so I understand, as I've never really mulled on how software patents mix with open source licenses, when you say "you'd have a bsd license with no patent grant", who are you waiting to be sued by? Facebook and/or others? Could you theoretically release an open source project under something like BSD that infringes on a patent you hold and then sue someone for patent infringement that uses your project?

I suppose mainly what I'm asking is that by having this patents clause, is Facebook asserting that some or all contents of react are patented by Facebook? Would they be able to sue you for using react if you did something to get your patent grant revoked?

diakritikal2• 9 years ago

What's the difference between say the PATENTS file/grant in these Facebook projects and the PATENTS file/grant in Go which Kubernetes is written in?

Not being inflammatory, genuinely interested as a user of both Go and React...

Scaevolus3• 9 years ago

Not a lawyer, but as I understand it:

The Go and Kubernetes patent licenses terminate if you file litigation specifically regarding those projects-- if you sue anyone for violating some garbage collector patent in Go, you lose the patent licenses Go granted.

Facebook's patent license terminates if you sue Facebook, subsidiaries, or "any party relating to the Software" for any patent infringement. It doesn't have to be related to React.

roadbeats• 9 years ago

Does MIT license work for Apache in this case ? If yes, they can easily switch to Preact; https://preactjs.com/

gstein6713• 9 years ago

Yes, it works just fine. Many projects at Apache rely on MIT-licensed code, and I know that several of the Apache projects are looking towards Preact as a replacement for their dependency upon React.

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

eugeneionesco• 9 years ago

This such a non-issue and affects very small part of those that use React it won't affect the popularity at all.

rockdoe5• 9 years ago

This is true if only because sane people aren't using React exactly because of this issue.

scarlac• 9 years ago

The only way I see people stop using React is if there's an example of a company being counter-sued by Facebook as a result of the license or something like that.

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

Many companies already can't use React. The numbers will increase.

delambo• 9 years ago

The stats don't really suggest that vue is rapidly climbing in popularity:

https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react&package=vue&p...

While popularity might not have anything to do with your use case, it still means a lot in terms of ecosystem, tooling, training, support and documentation.

JoshMnem11• 9 years ago

See: https://github.com/showcases/front-end-javascript-frameworks

These things usually don't happen overnight. It will be interesting to take another look about a year from now.

rsgrafx2• 9 years ago

What advice would you say to someone who just who's only about 6 months in ( learning React ) ? A. Its not been that long.. walk away and learn something else. B. If you've put in the time try to get something out of it. C. I don't know what the whole fuss is about your not going to be building anything worth facebook's time anyway.

chrisco25525• 9 years ago

If this is for your own personal projects or your startup...you should just keep using React. Seriously, unless you've got millions of dollars to bring a patent suit against Facebook (do you even have any patents to defend?), this should not even be on your radar. You should be focused on building great product and execution: not patent litigation.

rsgrafx2• 9 years ago

Thanks for clearing that up.

rockdoe5• 9 years ago

Don't ever hope of selling your business if it takes off though. The above may not apply to your potential buyers.

rakibtg• 9 years ago

This is pathetic and breaks my heart. Expecting something good from thieves is not very practical, Facebook the company started by stealing others dream. This days if you take a look at them, they won't let grow any other app for any cost. They bought instagram, whatsapp where they already was providing such feature but due to their earlybird list.

Also instead of contributing few tweaks into NPM they made a clone of NPM called Yarn, so funny.

Instead of contributing changes to PHP they made a clone of PHP called HackLang, i am laughing laughter :D

Facebook is a proven bad actor for all open source projects, and its time to be aware. One possible solution is to ban facebook from using any open source projects with a new license.

One day we will going to have F-Git (a copied version of git with some tweaks by facebook)

Snapchat denied to become a part of their monopoly cycle, they made a 100% clone of the product in facebooks every fucking platform. As a software engineer i found it very illegal and unethical, every maker should have good ethics, thats why facebook was unable to invent anything other than Poke feature on facebook itself.

Shame

If i were working at facebook i would definitely switch the company to better one, who won't force me to copy others.

However, i am upset, because the technology that i loved most was just a typical facebook product comes with hidden payloads. I would definitely stay 100% away from all facebook products. It also gives us a free lesson how a evil a tech company could be.

Alternatives: My personal list of alternatives are,

React = Vue JS

React Native = Native Script

All i can do is this: https://twitter.com/rakibtg/status/892784442476904449

davnicwil• 9 years ago

One day we are going to have F-git

Funnily enough, their source control is actually a counter example to your assertions here.

Facebook reportedly don't use git but rather mercurial, and seemingly have contributed significantly to that project. See this for example https://code.facebook.com/posts/218678814984400/scaling-merc...

Note, I don't work at Facebook or have any affiliation or knowledge of how they operate, I'm just taking the contents of this blog post at face value.

AgentME• 9 years ago

Also instead of contributing few tweaks into NPM they made a clone of NPM called Yarn, so funny.

npm is buggy and seems to need a lot more than a few tweaks. Some time before Yarn came out I was wondering why no one had yet decided to make a direct competitor / rewrite npm from scratch.

rafinha2• 9 years ago

Caffe and Caffe2 is also a good example!

zeptomu• 9 years ago

What - Caffe2 is a Facebook project?

I used the original Caffe and thought it was built by Berkely University - Caffe2 only shared the name I guess?

msoad• 9 years ago

I'm really thankful for Yarn.

npm is the buggies software I had to deal with! Also God forbids if you want to fix a bug! First the code is absolute piece of poop and when you figure all this "smart" hacks they wrote and fix it you will have a hard time getting it merged. They close prs and force their way of doing things without caring about community feedback. Take for example that stupid error output or randomly running prepublish script for example

There are so many bad architectural decisions in npm that there is no way you can fix it by a few changes.

opensports• 9 years ago

The whole ecosystem of amazing people and companies that helped build React is jeopardized, which is such a sad waste of code, development time, late nights, and humanity! Please think of long term gains and not exploding software licenses. There's already enough pain going round in the world.

bakli• 9 years ago

Does anyone have experience with https://preactjs.com/? Is it really the same (component wise)?

hobofan2• 9 years ago

Yeah, I recently replaced React with Preact in compat mode, without problems.

digitalzombie• 9 years ago

Damn glad I left web dev 3 years or so ago.

It was ember vs angular. I was like I'm out, going for data science.

While on the side line I've witness:

Angular was winning until Google made a new framework and named it Angular 2.

React took over until people find out their license is a trojan horse.

Now what? emberjs? Angular 3 (oh wait wtf it's 4)?

Jeez, front end is a mess of wild west. Yes, I understand the value in keeping up to date and continuously studying but the rate that frontend is going it is stupid.

nkkollaw• 9 years ago

Can this problem easily be solved by avoiding to sue Facebook?

If I understand the issue correctly, there's a clause in their license that says the license is revoked if you sue them.

How risky is this for regular usage?

ap46• 9 years ago

Way to close a debate.

wdb• 9 years ago

It's similar to the line "We can create apps or products that offer features and services similar to your app." that's part of the agreement for using the Facebook SDK. It's mostly a one way street with Facebook.

sandGorgon2• 9 years ago

Even worrying - Caffe2 is licensed under the same terms. https://github.com/caffe2/caffe2/blob/master/PATENTS . This really makes Tensorflow the only real alternative for true, viable deep learning.

tomduncalf• 9 years ago

I'm trying to understand what the real world implications of this notorious clause could be - obviously a lot of it comes down to legal interpretation but would be interesting to know people's thoughts.

Say my company patent some key part of a product, and Facebook then release a product which infringes on this patent.

If my company were to sue Facebook for this (unrelated to React) patent infringement, then as I understand it, this patent clause would cease to apply to my company.

Does that then mean that Facebook could countersue my company for using React, saying that some part of React is patented and my use of it is therefore infringing that patent? This seems kind of weird to me, as React is a product that they put out there for people to use - it's like Microsoft suing me because I use Office and they have a patent on the ribbon UI or something.

Or does it just mean that some third party could claim that React infringes on some patent of theirs, and they can then sue my company saying my use of React infringes on their patent? (Whereas previously Facebook would protect my company against this)

Or does it mean something else entirely?!

HugoDaniel• 9 years ago

Seamlessly switched from react to infernojs[0] a year ago. The only difference is that the apps are way faster now in infernojs while providing me with more optimization options as jsx properties[1]. Also their support channel in slack is great[2].

[0] https://github.com/infernojs/inferno

[1] https://infernojs.org/docs/guides/optimisations

[2] http://infernojs.slack.com

noir_lord• 9 years ago

Some even feel like they have to stop using UI frameworks because of it.

No, some feel they have to stop using React, not all UI frameworks, VueJS is pure MIT etc.

Vinnl2• 9 years ago

Can anyone explain if the patents license is anything more than "if you use our patents, we can use yours", or if that in itself is the thing that is offensive (and why)?

delinka4• 9 years ago

Someone please help me understand the problems here. The repository includes two documents: 1) a proper BSD license, and 2) a patent license. While reading the latter, I see no mention of it affecting the former.

So my take on this is that it's BSD-licensed code. Period. The patent license is a "bonus" and not at all required by the BSD license, and doesn't affect the BSD license. Any other company offering BSD licensed code is free to withhold licensing their patents at all. So are we suggesting that the patent license is a bad idea? That it's revocability is a bad idea? Why does this matter when the software is licensed under a BSD license?

navinsylvester• 9 years ago

This explains the rationale: https://www.cncf.io/blog/2017/02/01/cncf-recommends-aslv2/

delinka4• 9 years ago

This reads to me like it boils down to "oh, geez, stop making people read your additional licenses and just use ours." And that's fine. But the HN comments all make it sound like the situation with a custom patent license is an offensive affront to their existence as software engineers. And I personally disagree with that strong stance. Especially from a group that also seems to agree that patents in the software world are obnoxious and would presumably not ever sue over such a patent...

boubiyeah3• 9 years ago

Well it's a good thing there are plenty of alternatives. React is big but it only does the view well (and half of state management -.-') it's not too hard to replace in a stack.

I salute its main author, Facebook and instagram for inventing the virtual DOM concept; it's fucking genius and helped us make better apps, faster.

but absolutely no need to use react now.

Kiro• 9 years ago

What exactly does this mean to users of React? I've seen some dystopian scenarios but they feel really far-fetched.

jgalt212• 9 years ago

In practice, here's who will can be reasonably expect to be affected.

1. large tech cos. they always want to reserve the right to sue each other.

2. large advertisers. they need the ability to sue FB for any beefs they have over the ads they have purchased.

So if you're one of the two, I think your general counsel will say not to use react for any new projects.

azr792• 9 years ago

is anyone else is having trouble to share the link on facebook messenger? http://imgur.com/a/TIQoP

mrhigat4• 9 years ago

That's a shame. I really like the React interface, but would never build a company with it at the core just on the principle. Revoking on first strike is super defensive and just plain slimy.

If there were something like create-preact-app (not forked from create-react-app) I'd be all about it. With special decorators, dogmatic separation of templates, styles and logic, and mutability I don't think I can get aboard the Vue.js train though I'll admit I haven't dove deep yet.

The worst part is how Facebook seems to be asking other big players to follow their lead in adding kill switches to FOSS. It'd be one thing if it were just React. Devs shouldn't let this become common practice.

qxzw• 9 years ago

So for example if I create a product using React, something social-ish and it gets really popular. Facebook decides they like it and could easily implement something like that themselves. I find it to be blatant copy of my stuff. Nothing I can do there, right?

whipoodle2• 9 years ago

I think React is a very nice way to build UIs. I am still very dubious as to how serious this issue actually is. It still feels rather ginned-up to me. I can't understand what the real threat is here.

shock• 9 years ago

Facebook has always benefited from open source and has worked to contribute back as much as possible to the open source community.

Yes, they have benefited from open source software under BSD, MIT, Apache licenses and giving back under BSD+Patent grant. What a load of bullshit.

dinony• 9 years ago

Why is this unvoteable for me? :D

danschumann• 9 years ago

I don't think it's bad. "If we give you free stuff and you sue us, you no longer get free stuff"

supernumerary• 9 years ago

Same for Yarn...

captainmuon• 9 years ago

I would appreciate if Facebook would actually explain their license.

Especially: Is BSD+Patent strictly more permissive than BSD or not? There are two major camps as far as I can see:

Camp 1: BSD license does not give you a patent grant. You can always be sued by Facebook if you infringe (potential) React patents. On top of this, Facebook grants you use of (potential) React patents - but only as long as you don't enforce patents against them. If you do, you are back to the BSD license alone.

Camp 2: This camp believes a) that the BSD license implies an unconditional patent grant (for React) and b) that the conditional patent grant ('PATENTS') is not optional, but inseparable from 'LICENSE'. If this is true, BSD+Patent grant is strictly less permissive than BSD alone. If you enforce patents against Facebook, you stand worse than with BSD alone.

The only way this could be cleared up (beyond doubt) is by a court, or very easily with a few lines from Facebook.

addicted• 9 years ago

I cannot help but look at this along with Facebook's copy to win strategy.

It appears to me that FB might be using their open source contributions as a Trojan horse to make sure others can't compete with them. If a startup happens to use FB open source tech for their startup, FB can duplicate everything they do, even legitimately patented stuff, and the startup is unable to fight back because their sign up page happened to be built in React.

This is giving just too much power o one company.

ai_ia• 9 years ago

Okay, I need some clarifications now regarding the whole issue. I am building my web app using React and will be extending to mobile platforms using React-Native. The product is kind of paradigm change in the way we deal with education, so I will at some point consider getting a patent protecting my own interests.

My questions are as follows: 1. If fb copies the entire thing, repackages it as something different and tries to make it free and open source. I wouldn't be able to sue them just because I used React and React-Native?

Is that all what the patent license means or I am missing something here?

scott_karana• 9 years ago

You would be able to sue them, but you'd lose the grant to use any patents that cover React.

alexandercrohde• 9 years ago

I have to say, I think Facebook is in the right on this one. I think the ecosystem would benefit greatly if this were adopted massively.

I also think very few companies are going to have a time where they need to sue FB for patent infringement (how many people have patents, how many of those patents should really exist, how likely is facebook to violate that patent)?

This mostly follows if you believe the world is a better place without software patents at all.

Illniyar• 9 years ago

It seems to me the core of the disagreement revolves around whether you believe there is an implicit grant of patent or not.

If you believe the BSD has an implicit grant, then the facebook license is a more limited license. If you don't believe it, then the facebook license is better for the user.

As far as I know there is no president to solve this neither in the U.S. or europe, so both views are valid.

One thing is weird in facebook's behaviour though - they imply that the BSD doesn't have an implicit grant, and so they are benevolently giving away a better license, but if so, then the public outcry should be enough to take it back, if it's just a gesture of good will, and it isn't received as such, what's the point in continuing in this course?

The only explanation they give is that they are more or less on a crusade for people to adapt this license because they believe it will reduce patent lawsuits

donpinkus• 9 years ago

So, can I use React as my company's front end framework or not?

If I do use React, what is the specific legal risk (if any)?

PLEASE no emotionally charged comments - I just want a clear answer from someone who deeply understands the legal stuff.

gramstrong2• 9 years ago

You most likely certainly can with nothing to worry about. 99.99% of the world's developers will never need to sue Facebook for patent infringement. That is, unless Facebook begins reverse patent-trolling. But I see it as more of a decision on ethics at this point in time, and don't really see any reason to feel particularly threatened.

dmoney• 9 years ago

Let me make sure I understand this: The license means that Facebook grants you the right to use the patents on React, but if you sue Facebook for patent infringement, you lose the right to use React?

bugsbugs• 9 years ago

Once someone told me a story about two company that were building cars. One was building slick cars the other not so slick cars but with robust tires that could roll on spikes, additionally they were silently buying roads. So, there were quite even on the market, but one day suddenly spikes just popped up from roads. At, the time when I heard this story the "spike" company was referring to Microsoft.

So much about "do not be evil" policy although that is Google slogan one must ask is the Angular or Node.js next?

21st century and still greed for money and monopoly "one to rule them all" screwing open trusting hard working guy ... I know this is side ways but: how should we trust any other thing they release or talk about privacy, sharing, VR, Basic Income ... ?!

kanishkdudeja• 9 years ago

My opinion on why this could now become a practical problem for people who still want to continue with React:

1) This will deter people and organizations from using such libraries. For example :- WordPress.com and many other companies have said that they will no longer use React.

2) Lower usage and application of such libraries means that lesser people will find bugs in them, lesser people will fork these libraries, lesser people will contribute to these libraries.

3) Facebook may itself lose interest in continuing to open source the library. Or add any new features to the open source version.

4) People may get stuck with bugs in such libraries and with no functionality being added to such libraries for years.

mderazon• 9 years ago

At this point not using Facebook OSS tools for development is like not using Google for search. There are so many popular FB libraries under the same patent license, React is just the most popular.

tjholowaychuk• 9 years ago

Isn't React the slowest and largest React-like implementation anyway? Seems like this will just foster "nicer" implementations, I don't see what the worry is all about. It's not like React is some behemoth that can't be rewritten.

yuhong2• 9 years ago

I just noticed that software patents and employment anti-discrimination laws have some very similar problems. With the performance of manual labor jobs and physical patents the tests tends to be relatively objective, and that was probably what both laws was designed for. With many other jobs and with software patents this is often not the case, making the laws much easier to abuse for example.

yuhong2• 9 years ago

As a side note, this is also why anti-discrimination laws still make sense for things like public places and voting, because the test for whether someone is able to vote for example tends to be objective.

akapaka• 9 years ago

license is radioactive

Same is true for Fuchsia, Google's new os replacement for android / linux. See https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/calendar/blob/master/PATEN...

ngsayjoe• 9 years ago

As a small startup, I absolutely love this. It gives me the advantage to use React while my bigger VC-funded competitors can't.

stolsvik• 9 years ago

Wrt. the idea that without the grant, Facebook can sue you. A) There's this thing with "implicit grant" since they've open sourced it and grant you a license. But even without this, and more interestingly, B) If they sue anybody for anything regarding React, wouldn't they immediately loose the entire community around React? "Damn, they really sued Widgets Inc. over some bs. patent in React, better stop using this minefield right away"..

f38hf3fhhf• 9 years ago

Does this mean Facebook can infringe on your patents and you cannot sue?

bytesandbots• 9 years ago

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Imagine a small company releasing a new js framework with BSD+Patents license. Will FB use ever this framework? No. Because merely using this framework gives this small company the effective freedom to infringe Facebook's patents. Why? Because the cost for FB to shift frameworks will be huge, thus prohibiting FB to sue this small company for patent infringement.

Using a software with BSD+Patents license is almost giving up the right to sue this company. This is dangerously radioactive.

Explaining React's license

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