It's a near-certainty that any tech giant is going to have patent issues with any other tech giant, not bundling the consequences of this with their open source licenses would be a good start.

I am not a lawyer, but perhaps they could just skip the second paragraph? I understand the motivation behind discouraging people from suing you, but putting "you will not sue us for patent infringement" into a software license is a bit weird.

I've raised this many times before, but you shall not sue us is emphatically not part of the software license. It's a separate grant of patent rights.

Are you nitpicking legal semantics (including something in one agreement or another), or saying it's possible to legally use React-Native while suing Facebook for completely unrelated patent infringement?

The latter.

It is absolutely possible to legally use React while going ahead and suing Facebook. You do not lose your license to React by suing Facebook.

What you do lose is an explicit grant of additional patent rights - the grant given in the PATENTS file. Note that there is no specification therein regarding what patents might be covered; it's completely possible that none of Facebook's patents have anything to do with React. I haven't looked. in any case, patents are totally distinct from you license to use React.

> It is absolutely possible to legally use React while going ahead and suing Facebook.

Only if it's possible to use React without infringing (or licensing) any Facebook patents. "Use" is not just about copyright.

(Which, as you point out, is plausible; there's just no reason to believe it's guaranteed to be true.)

OK, so I can legally use React-Native in my app while suing Facebook for unrelated patent infringement. I also can claim the patent they are suing me for infringing is invalid while continuing to use React-Native.

Would it be practically advisable to do so?

INAL.

You have to differentiate between copyright and patents.

From the perspective of copyright you're perfectly in the clear, the grant of rights that's part of the BSD license will not be revoked.

What will be revoked is the right to Facebook's patents insofar they apply to React.js. First of all that that requires, that Facebook actually has patents that apply to React.js. It also means you're no worse off than without a patent grant.

I prefer the Apache 2.0 wording, but this seems to be blown widely out of proportion.

> It also means you're no worse off than without a patent grant.

No, see discussion above re: implicit and explicit patent grants. You don't fall back to an implicit grant when an explicit one is revoked.

It says if you get into a patent disagreement with their company you can no longer use react, whether they sue you, or you sue them. I'm not planning on suing facebook, but if they sue me, suddenly I have 2 problems, the lawsuit, and not being able to use react anymore.

It should only regard to react. If the clause is to protect their right to develop react, it should only pertain to such.

Please don't spread fear and uncertainty based on incorrect understanding of licensing.

Suing Facebook does not void your license to use React. It voids your additional patent grant. That's different.

So what does the additional patent grant actually grant?

The guarantee that Facebook won't sue you if they have patents that apply to React.js.

To put it simple, without the patent grant you'd be worse off. But with the Apache 2.0 version you'd be better off.

Not quite - there's an implied patent license that comes with licenses that mention nothing about patents, because otherwise nobody could use the code. Once the license explicitly gives a patent grant, it replaces that implied patent license. Think of it like C++ default constructors.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9113515

I'm curious too. :)