Remember that copyright and patent law are separate things. If there are no actual patents, then Facebook's BSD + Patents grant just becomes a normal BSD license.
IMHO, Typescript exists and is of similar quality, far higher community mindshare, and moving from TS ->ES6 is much more easier (in an emergency).
If you write in Reason, the ultimate risk is if you think you will ever be acquired by Google, Microsoft, etc
And it shows, because it has become quite unresponsive versus the previous Java/Objective-C/C++ version.
Now I always postpone my Skype conversations to a PC near me.
Now, people will still use React - because its javascript and at the end of the day, you can rewrite your web stack faster.
Imagine if you have a React Native app already distributed, a Caffe2 ai pipeline in production... or if your logic is in Bucklescript. Much harder to move away if your acquiring company is in a dispute.
...if Facebook has any patents. Which, in this case, it seems very likely they do not.
Incorrect. Your license to their patents gets revoked. Hence why the React license "issue" is basically a paper tiger. (See, eg, https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...)
That's not my reading. From the patent grant:
> Facebook ... grants to each recipient of the Software ... license under any Necessary Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software.
This doesn't say that they're granting you a license to their patents, just their software. In fact, about patents they go beyond to say:
> ... no license is granted under Facebook’s rights in any patent claims that are infringed by (i) modifications to the Software made by you or any third party or (ii) the Software in combination with any software or other technology.
IMO that's pretty clearly saying you don't actually have any license to their patents. Regarding the termination clause:
> The license granted hereunder will terminate....
It seems pretty clear the only license granted hereunder is the one to use the software; in other words if you sue FB for patent infringement you lose the right to use React/Reason.
Literally every lawyer who has looked at that license agrees that your interpretation is wrong.
Also, licenses like this have standard language; if you're even slightly familiar with how such language is interpreted, you'd realise that this represents two independent licenses to two different things, which terminate in different cases.
Also, Facebook has publically explained what the language means to them, and yes, that would be legally binding on them.
Plus:
> IMO that's pretty clearly saying you don't actually have any license to their patents.
Right, a document titled "additional grant of patent rights" that "grants to each recipient of the Software [...] a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any [claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone], isn't a grant of patent rights?
I'm sorry, but literally everything you've said is wrong. I highly suggest you read the analysis of an actual lawyer, such as the one I linked in the comment you're replying to, because you appear to have no clue what you're talking about.
> Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate?
> No.
People lie. It happens. Facebook is not exactly the most noble company in the world.
I also find it interesting that Microsoft is still maintaining React-related projects, despite the license issues.
People were compiling OCaml to Javascript long before it was fashionable. js_of_ocaml is 7 years old and the project that comes from is older still.
Very narrow and specific implementation details might be patented but compiler technology itself is as old as the hills.
I wish they go one step further and say, if you sue or threaten to sue anyone (not just FB) over patents, then the grant terminates automatically.
Still, folks more knowledgeable than me on this topic say it's not a big deal: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...
So yes, any use of a software patent offensively is malicious.
It's better not to use software to force people to change their behavior. It's open source software. That means something. Or used to, at least. We've come from the ideals of the GPL down to defensive/active countermeasures of corporation vs corporation conflict.
GPL forces people to respect the wishes of whatever software they depend on, they're free to not use it.
Which is fine, I get it. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just lamenting that Software Matters Now. At this point it's less about having an open culture of sharing and more "We own this."
If you are a criminal and want to use software patents to attack innocents, I couldn't care less if Facebook throws some lawyers to hunt you.
No you don't. You lose the right to use any patents Facebook might (or much more likely, doesn't) have on React.
What patent? Patents are a matter of public record; tell me what patent you think I'd be violating.
1) Anyone could apply for a patent on anything. IBM could apply for a patent on some core tech used in your own 100% home rolled web stack. I mean, I have no reason to think they will, but if we're just pulling stuff out of the air that might happen, that seems just as likely.
2) ...actually, more likely. Because a patent application must be filed within 1 year of public disclosure or its barred, and React has been out for years. So...
> Facebook might apply for a React-related patent in the future
No, that would be illegal.
> No, that would be illegal.
How come? So there couldn't be a new version of React with some patented technology? See i.e. [1].
1 - https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+use...
They can deny you the right to use their patents...if any exist.
Without a patent grant you’re in the same situation.
You’d still be covered by the (less powerful) implicit grant in the license anyhow as the license doesn’t get revoked.
You can’t have it both ways: both with and without the grant can’t be bad.
An explicit grant gives you much more power generally. Their ability to revoke is limited to specific situations and that's a reasonable tradeoff. It's still more rights than you have without the patent grant.
Basically this whole topic is FUD (the Apache situation most people don’t actually under and just repeat incorrect information around).
Let’s say you remove the patents license, as most people here seem to want, what do you have?
The exact same situation as if you sued FB over patents and they revoked it that so many ppl are complaining about.
The license without the grant has an implicit grant anyhow. This is less strong than what they added: an explicit grant.
The hullabaloo over this is just silly.
What I said was, if you sue Facebook for infringing on your patents then, by my reading, you lose the React software license. I didn't say that you lose the license if React contains patented works.
I saw the whole Linux v SCO thing so I hate FUD as much as the next guy, but I am literally going by the words in that document. I'm not adding or embellishing. Maybe my interpretation is wrong--I'm not a lawyer--but this is what I see when I read it.
> Let’s say you remove the patents license ... if you sued FB over patents and they revoked it that so many ppl are complaining about.
As I explained, my reading is that if Facebook removes the patent grant and you were to sue them, they could not revoke the React software license, which is what I believe they can do now.
Again, I know my reading may be wrong. But I am going by the exact wording of the patent grant.
Your reading is wrong: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...
I urge you to reread the Patent Grant: no-where does it even come close to saying that.
I mean Reason seems to be part of BuckleScript which doesn't belong to FB
https://github.com/facebook/reason/blob/master/PATENTS.txt