"To my knowledge, Facebook has never proactively sued anyone for infringing its patents."
That's not a good enough reason for developers or startups to give away legal power like that. Forgive me if I don't feel like waiting for them to turn evil.
Hi, author of the post here. This quote isn't a reason to agree to the license.
Agreeing to the Facebook BSD+Patents license doesn't rest on the assumption that Facebook will continue a defensive stance on patents. It gives you rights or mostly preserves your rights if Facebook were to proactively claim patent infringement. From my reading:
1. The patent grant specifically gives you patent licenses for Facebook open source, so Facebook couldn't rightfully claim patent infringement for the licensed patents.
2. The grant also says if Facebook were to proactively sue you for infringing its patents, you'd keep its patent licenses even if you were to countersue.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice.)
> As part of the patent grant, you’d have to stop using Facebook open source upon claiming patent infringement.
IANAL but I don't believe this is correct.
If I'm using React and I decide to sue Facebook for infringing some other software patents I hold, I lose the patent grant for any potential patents Facebook might hold concerning React. Which they could go after me with if they do indeed hold such patents. There's nothing proactively forcing me off React.
I just don't see anything but good from this BSD+patent grant situation. It lessens software patent litigation in general and lets me know I'm safe from Facebook suing me specially. It seems fantastic!
My friends and I have dealt with Facebook before in various capacities, and I can tell you that they play DIRTY, and if it comes down to it, they won't hesitate to use the aforementioned PATENTS license in their favor against you.
I know many stories like this; Facebook M&A meets with the founders of a promising company under the guise of a "we're about to acquire you" only to have Facebook copy their companies and then follow up with Facebook's lawyers knocking on said startups' doors to shut them down.
As such, I will not touch Facebook with a 10 foot pole, and I strongly recommend, from personal experience, that you do the same with your company.
> If I'm using React and I decide to sue Facebook for infringing some other software patents I hold, I lose the patent grant for any potential patents Facebook might hold concerning React. Which they could go after me with if they do indeed hold such patents. There's nothing proactively forcing me off React.
It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't actually hold any patents on React. This seems unlikely, and is contradicted by what the author wrote (indicating that popular React alternatives may also infringe FB patents). Or am I not understanding your line of thinking?
My view, as a former lawyer, is that if you want to sue FB for patent infringement, you would be very unwise to continue using React. Willful infringement = treble damages.
Hi, author of the post here. I updated the post last night to be more precise about losing the patent grant specifically and not other rights like the copyright license.
This is good insight for Facebook's motivation behind this license. Even before this post, most people understood why Facebook would use this license. However, it still doesn't fix its problems for 3rd parties, and it introduces bad precedents for open source in general. I can see less collaboration over time between different companies if this license ever gets popular. I could be wrong but knowing the history behind it doesn't change my opinion that this will hurt open source in the long run.
> ... If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
It seems to be more fair to me. It doesn't give any special right to Facebook or any other entity. I.e. Apache 2.0 revokes the patent grant if anybody sues for patent infringement arising out of the work. Facebook's license the patent grant if anybody sues Facebook for anything, or other parties for patent infringement arising out of the work.
This discussion just goes to show again the extent to which the tech community allowed itself to be gaslighted into accepting that:
1. Anything about react is patentable.
2. Licensing of unspecified patents is a thing.
3. Licensing of software without disclosing related patents held by the author does not invalidate those patents on the basis of bad faith acting alone.
In what obscene legal reality does adding a patent grant that can be revoked in certain circumstances puts the licensee in a worse position than a license that does not mention patents at all ?
There is something I don't understand about the HN comments when the React license comes up.
Whenever something about software patents in general comes up, the majority of commenters seem to condemn them - at a minimum in their offensive usage. And a vast majority of commenters seem to be opposed to them at least to some degree.
So if as a general position you do not support the offensive use of software patents, why does the react license matter _at all_ to you? The only time it would matter would be if you would sue facebook for violating your patents. Am I not correctly understanding the license? Does it apply any other time?
There already exists a widely-used license for actively protecting both users and developers from patents embodied in a work: Apache 2.0.
Facebook made their own license for a reason. Compared to Apache, the Facebook license gives Facebook greater power in the user-developer relationship. They only give users use of React patents, but in return they demand protection against all patents from their users.
I'm not a huge fan of the patent system, but I'm even less a fan of hoisting Facebook into a position of even greater power over smaller competitors.
tl;dr: The clause isn't fair. It grants uneven protection. Their refusal to use a similar, existing, popular license that does grant equal protection is concerning.
If everyone used React, Facebook would then be rather free to sue everyone (especially other mega corps) for violating Facebook's patents. Normally, this isn't the case, because every company of appreciable size has at least a few patents laying around that you're violating, which they could use to countersue. It's a MAD situation. But if you sign away your right to sue Facebook, you're also signing away your right to countersue Facebook—thus removing any disincentive Facebook would have for just suing anyone they like.
They assert it applies even if you are suing facebook for infringing on your hardware / biotech / business model patent.
In my non-lawyer understanding the existence of the patent grant changes nothing in those circumstances (that is they could sue you without it as well with the same merit)
and actually prevents them from suing without you suing them first, however companies do not usually restrict themselves like that and consider it a defensive move so someone who is a lawyer should explain what they are trying to pull here.
I think this is the result of a trend away from the previous conviction of pretty much everyone in tech that patents on software are an awful idea.
Is the community changing towards a demographic intent on striking it rich, instead of the previous morals of openness? There are also more condemnation of, for example, the GPL now than there have been in the past.
So, for a while, everyone in upper management will continue with such policies as Facebook's, since they came up at a time where patents where anathema. We'll see if this changes when today's entry-level programmers climb the ranks–or if their views change over time, or if the latter selects for people of certain opinions.
So speaking as the guy responsible for Google's opensource-licensing for a long time (i've finally been able to divest myself of most of it :P):
You are right in a sense, but Google/MS also take more risk to do so.
Google did also try something not quite like this, but in the same vein.
The initial webm license terminated both patents and copyright if you sued over infringement. (Apache, et al just terminate patent licenses. You could still use the software if it had no patents).
The practical upshot you couldn't use that software if you sued over infringement.
This was done, of course, because of the state of the video codec world.
Fortunately/unfortunately (depending on who you ask) despite being okay with it prior to release (IE we asked, ran it by the a lot of folks, etc), certain partners later decided they weren't okay with it because it wasn't GPLv2 (but was GPLv3) compatible.
So we changed it.
The point of all this is that:
License innovation by itself is not a bad thing. Needs change of communities change over time, including open source.
IMHO, innovation in this space needs to be done for a good reason, and needs to be done collaboratively, if you want any chance at success.
It's easy to "manage open source perfectly fine" if you just open-source less of your code, or release it without any patent grant at all. I'm not sure how much credit should be given for those non-efforts, though.
Replace "Yahoo" with "Microsoft", and "Facebook" with "Yahoo", and you have basically the same justification given to me as a Yahoo employee to patent my (company internal) hack-day ideas.
The engineering manager responsible said Yahoo would only use patents as a defensive measure, to defend themselves against patent threats from other companies. Same promises, same logic. Two years later Yahoo launched their software patent action against Facebook.
Software patents can only be used offensively. Because their defensive capability is limited to the threat of using them offensively. If there is no substance to the threat they are useless. So the value of software patents rests solely on their offensive capability.
Software patents are the nuclear weapons of the software industry. If you don't have them, you're at the mercy of those who do. But even if you get them with deterrence in mind, it can still be used offensively - and if it falls into the hands of someone with nothing to lose (a terrorist group with no homeland/patent troll, aka non-practising entity, hence immune to countersuits) none of the deterrence works. In short we'd all be better off if they just didn't exist
An investment of $550 million that is only "for defensive purposes only" is BS. Company policies change all the time especially if a new market competitor emerges.
Here's a question though. Let's say you're a startup investor and you have a choice to acquire one startup and one startup uses react and one uses vue.js both have stable apps and both have the same revenue which one would you choose.
Genuinely ignorant question: couldn't a company file for a patent, and then open-source it? (not sure if open-source is even the right terminology)
I'm picturing a scenario where the idea is patented, but the patent holder reserves no rights on it, de-weaponizing the patent.
Thus no one else can patent the idea and use it offensively nor is there a question of the original patent holder "turning evil" and using the patent as a weapon.
This is a great explanation and it all makes sense.
Given the mess that it was born from, it makes sense for developers to think about staying away from this if building anything of consequence.
It also is incompatible with free software.
However there are a lot of things that are worth developing that are neither of these things and react can be a great choice there on the technical merits.
It's fine that Facebook wants to defend itself and gain hiring benefits from launching interesting projects, but those reasons aren't sufficient to allay concerns that this license won't be weaponized against small teams with interesting technologies.
Those small teams only need to be concerned in the event that they intend on suing Facebook for PATENT INFRINGEMENT. That's it. That's the only event that this could ever be relevant to you. Small teams should focus on building great products. If their hope is to patent some software algorithm in the hopes that they're going to make it big in a legal battle with Facebook...I mean, I suppose in that special 1 in a million case you should probably avoid Facebook open source. But you are probably going to face patent counterclaims regardless, because they own thousands of software patents. You might be accidentally violating one of them now. Who knows? Have you combed through your code base and Facebook's patent portfolio to find out? What about all the other big software companies out there? Google? Yahoo? Microsoft? Your choice of tech won't prevent you from violating broad software patents like Amazon's infamous 1-Click patent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click, for example.
Where I work we've already been given the "don't use React" talk from legal. I'm curious as to how many others out there are getting the same advice at their day job.
The issue of not wanting open source contributions to inadvertently license valuable patents is not unique to Facebook.
Qualcomm reorganized itself several years ago so that their employees who interact with open source would be assigned to one corporate entity while all sensitive patents would be held by a separate corporate entity.
Other large organizations muddle through with closer oversight of the open source teams by the legal team than either would like.
After reading this article, I can see where Facebook is coming from when making these licensing changes. However, the points he makes about smaller companies feeling pain from Facebook due to patent infringement is very real too.
What patents, exactly, is Facebook infringing? And considering Facebook has one rather specific product: How would it help these companies if Facebook avoided their patented technology, unless they're trying to start a social network? And if they're starting a social network: is there anything that makes it plausible that their lack of success in unseating Facebook is due to this technology?
And if they're feeling the pain, have any of them sued Facebook and won? If not: Is it because they're using React? If not: How does the patent grant make a difference then?
> it’s not clear how much switching to another React-like library like Preact or Vue would help; you need Facebook’s patent licenses anyway — in the eyes of the law — for any library that uses data structures, algorithms, or techniques patented by Facebook.
The post describes Facebook's motivation for their license, but personally, I don't care about their motivation, but about the fact that their license is anti-Open Source, anti-Free Software.
There's actually a big difference between the patents grant of a license like Apache 2.0 and FB's license and I quote (from Apache 2.0):
> "If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed"
In other words the patents grant and its revocation is made explicitly in the context of "The Work" being licensed. So you can still sue a company like Facebook for unrelated projects and still be protected by the license.
By contrast Facebook's PATENTS license says that:
> "The license granted here under 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: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates ..."
Let me spell this out for you:
1. if Facebook infringes your IP, but you happen to use React, then you can't sue them without also risk infringing on their React-related IP and be counter-sued for it
2. their PATENTS creates a unidirectional relationship; when Facebook accepts your contributions, they are protected because MIT / BSD are said to have an "implicit patents grant" (which supposedly works in the US) due to the estoppel principle
Btw, Microsoft is taking steps to do what Facebook is doing as well. See for example how they are switching from Apache 2.0 to MIT and the disingenuous way they are communicating the change:
But folks, this is not how Open Source or Free Software is supposed to work. When you release something as Open Source, you need to allow others to use your work as they wish (Freedom 0, or in OSI parlance, no discrimination against fields of endeavor).
Patent-encumbered software is NOT Open Source or Free Software.
[IANAL] The React license provides more rights than BSD/MIT. Period. The "oh but what if Facebook has patents" claim is just as valid as it is for any other BSD code. If you're worried about React, you should be worried about all of your BSD code from companies that are big enough to have huge patent portfolios.
One thing I think would lay to rest a lot of this issue would be if Facebook would just explicitly state, "We have patents for React," or, "We hold no patents for React." There's a lot of misinformation going around, and some people say that there have been searches and found nothing, others have said there are patents, so it's very confusing. My understanding is that Facebook doesn't hold any patents for React or technologies that React uses, but I don't know for sure because I haven't seen it from a qualified source and Facebook hasn't said anything. The other thing I think would help is if Facebook made is crystal clear the meaning of the patent grant and explained it in plain English, because they currently aren't doing a good job at explaining it as evidenced by people always saying different things about it. Their relative silence and opaqueness around this issue only causes confusion and distrust of their OSS work, even if it is good.
The main reason that I don't like the patent grant isn't because of React specifically, it's because Facebook revokes ANY patents if you sue them for patent infringement, even ones unconcerned with the technology you're suing them for. This is why I prefer OSS licenses with explicit patent grants better, because they're worded in such a way that the only patent grants you lose are the ones that concern the technology under license (see Apache 2.0).
<not a lawyer>
In particular my reading is that the BSD license alone gives anyone an irrevocable right to use, modify and redistribute the software providing only the conditions in that license are met.
So one can either ignore the PATENTS file altogether or to formally fork the repo while omitting this file and it would be as if that file never existed.
Facebooks' (et al.) claim that these two files together constitute the governing license should be challenged as fraudulent - if they want to relicense react under a new license that contains terms regarding patents they can do so but the last revision before that would still be BSD licensed and the community can fork it.
</still not a lawyer>
Patents were created to protect an inventor.
Facebook does not need to protect any inventions, because they are so big and powerful. Patents can only hurt them.
If you have such a monopoly, only legal protection would protect you.
Maybe there is a way to make this a little more fair. Every open source project could add a patent clause that said "If you license your software with a patent clause and invoke that clause against anyone, you lose your right to use this software". I know, I know, tit for tat. On the other hand FB wants to be part of the open source community they should do it in a fair and reasonable way, and if they need to "protection" maybe everyone else needs it too.
[+] [-] mplewis|8 years ago|reply
That's not a good enough reason for developers or startups to give away legal power like that. Forgive me if I don't feel like waiting for them to turn evil.
[+] [-] vmarshall23|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jameside|8 years ago|reply
Agreeing to the Facebook BSD+Patents license doesn't rest on the assumption that Facebook will continue a defensive stance on patents. It gives you rights or mostly preserves your rights if Facebook were to proactively claim patent infringement. From my reading:
1. The patent grant specifically gives you patent licenses for Facebook open source, so Facebook couldn't rightfully claim patent infringement for the licensed patents.
2. The grant also says if Facebook were to proactively sue you for infringing its patents, you'd keep its patent licenses even if you were to countersue.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice.)
[+] [-] kjsthree|8 years ago|reply
IANAL but I don't believe this is correct.
If I'm using React and I decide to sue Facebook for infringing some other software patents I hold, I lose the patent grant for any potential patents Facebook might hold concerning React. Which they could go after me with if they do indeed hold such patents. There's nothing proactively forcing me off React.
I just don't see anything but good from this BSD+patent grant situation. It lessens software patent litigation in general and lets me know I'm safe from Facebook suing me specially. It seems fantastic!
[+] [-] ThrowAwayFB11|8 years ago|reply
I know many stories like this; Facebook M&A meets with the founders of a promising company under the guise of a "we're about to acquire you" only to have Facebook copy their companies and then follow up with Facebook's lawyers knocking on said startups' doors to shut them down.
As such, I will not touch Facebook with a 10 foot pole, and I strongly recommend, from personal experience, that you do the same with your company.
[+] [-] gnicholas|8 years ago|reply
It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't actually hold any patents on React. This seems unlikely, and is contradicted by what the author wrote (indicating that popular React alternatives may also infringe FB patents). Or am I not understanding your line of thinking?
My view, as a former lawyer, is that if you want to sue FB for patent infringement, you would be very unwise to continue using React. Willful infringement = treble damages.
[+] [-] sandGorgon|8 years ago|reply
Not just React - you also lose status on Caffe2, React Native and ReasonML.
[+] [-] jameside|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solomatov|8 years ago|reply
IANAL. You are safe only if you use any React related patents. They are free to sue for infringement of any other patents they hold.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chaostheory|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bigbugbag|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abritinthebay|8 years ago|reply
Most developers don’t understand basic copyright, let alone licenses and grants.
[+] [-] chaostheory|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solomatov|8 years ago|reply
If we take a look at Apache 2.0's patent grant:
> ... If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.
It seems to be more fair to me. It doesn't give any special right to Facebook or any other entity. I.e. Apache 2.0 revokes the patent grant if anybody sues for patent infringement arising out of the work. Facebook's license the patent grant if anybody sues Facebook for anything, or other parties for patent infringement arising out of the work.
[+] [-] ThisCourtIsAnal|8 years ago|reply
1. Anything about react is patentable.
2. Licensing of unspecified patents is a thing.
3. Licensing of software without disclosing related patents held by the author does not invalidate those patents on the basis of bad faith acting alone.
In what obscene legal reality does adding a patent grant that can be revoked in certain circumstances puts the licensee in a worse position than a license that does not mention patents at all ?
[+] [-] nmjohn|8 years ago|reply
Whenever something about software patents in general comes up, the majority of commenters seem to condemn them - at a minimum in their offensive usage. And a vast majority of commenters seem to be opposed to them at least to some degree.
So if as a general position you do not support the offensive use of software patents, why does the react license matter _at all_ to you? The only time it would matter would be if you would sue facebook for violating your patents. Am I not correctly understanding the license? Does it apply any other time?
[+] [-] slavik81|8 years ago|reply
Facebook made their own license for a reason. Compared to Apache, the Facebook license gives Facebook greater power in the user-developer relationship. They only give users use of React patents, but in return they demand protection against all patents from their users.
I'm not a huge fan of the patent system, but I'm even less a fan of hoisting Facebook into a position of even greater power over smaller competitors.
tl;dr: The clause isn't fair. It grants uneven protection. Their refusal to use a similar, existing, popular license that does grant equal protection is concerning.
[+] [-] derefr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThisCourtIsAnal|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt4077|8 years ago|reply
Is the community changing towards a demographic intent on striking it rich, instead of the previous morals of openness? There are also more condemnation of, for example, the GPL now than there have been in the past.
So, for a while, everyone in upper management will continue with such policies as Facebook's, since they came up at a time where patents where anathema. We'll see if this changes when today's entry-level programmers climb the ranks–or if their views change over time, or if the latter selects for people of certain opinions.
[+] [-] rocky1138|8 years ago|reply
The trouble is when you go to implement some of this stuff at work and get pushback from your team or higher-ups about the licenses for the software.
[+] [-] jimjimjim|8 years ago|reply
this is the mutually-assured destruction analogy. If you can't get rid of them altogether you don't want someone being immune to them.
[+] [-] Mayzie|8 years ago|reply
Google and Microsoft are just as big, yet they can manage open source perfectly fine without this ridiculous licence.
[+] [-] DannyBee|8 years ago|reply
You are right in a sense, but Google/MS also take more risk to do so.
Google did also try something not quite like this, but in the same vein.
The initial webm license terminated both patents and copyright if you sued over infringement. (Apache, et al just terminate patent licenses. You could still use the software if it had no patents).
The practical upshot you couldn't use that software if you sued over infringement.
This was done, of course, because of the state of the video codec world.
Fortunately/unfortunately (depending on who you ask) despite being okay with it prior to release (IE we asked, ran it by the a lot of folks, etc), certain partners later decided they weren't okay with it because it wasn't GPLv2 (but was GPLv3) compatible.
So we changed it.
The point of all this is that: License innovation by itself is not a bad thing. Needs change of communities change over time, including open source. IMHO, innovation in this space needs to be done for a good reason, and needs to be done collaboratively, if you want any chance at success.
[+] [-] notacoward|8 years ago|reply
It's easy to "manage open source perfectly fine" if you just open-source less of your code, or release it without any patent grant at all. I'm not sure how much credit should be given for those non-efforts, though.
[+] [-] Isofarro|8 years ago|reply
The engineering manager responsible said Yahoo would only use patents as a defensive measure, to defend themselves against patent threats from other companies. Same promises, same logic. Two years later Yahoo launched their software patent action against Facebook.
Software patents can only be used offensively. Because their defensive capability is limited to the threat of using them offensively. If there is no substance to the threat they are useless. So the value of software patents rests solely on their offensive capability.
[+] [-] m12k|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bodegajed|8 years ago|reply
Here's a question though. Let's say you're a startup investor and you have a choice to acquire one startup and one startup uses react and one uses vue.js both have stable apps and both have the same revenue which one would you choose.
[+] [-] heymijo|8 years ago|reply
I'm picturing a scenario where the idea is patented, but the patent holder reserves no rights on it, de-weaponizing the patent.
Thus no one else can patent the idea and use it offensively nor is there a question of the original patent holder "turning evil" and using the patent as a weapon.
[+] [-] devnonymous|8 years ago|reply
Well, not really. This exists:
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stuaxo|8 years ago|reply
Given the mess that it was born from, it makes sense for developers to think about staying away from this if building anything of consequence.
It also is incompatible with free software.
However there are a lot of things that are worth developing that are neither of these things and react can be a great choice there on the technical merits.
[+] [-] politician|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisco255|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjpnz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rectang|8 years ago|reply
Qualcomm reorganized itself several years ago so that their employees who interact with open source would be assigned to one corporate entity while all sensitive patents would be held by a separate corporate entity.
Other large organizations muddle through with closer oversight of the open source teams by the legal team than either would like.
It is a difficult problem to solve.
[+] [-] TwelveNights|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt4077|8 years ago|reply
And if they're feeling the pain, have any of them sued Facebook and won? If not: Is it because they're using React? If not: How does the patent grant make a difference then?
[+] [-] owens99|8 years ago|reply
Can someone clarify what the author means here?
[+] [-] bad_user|8 years ago|reply
There's actually a big difference between the patents grant of a license like Apache 2.0 and FB's license and I quote (from Apache 2.0):
> "If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed"
In other words the patents grant and its revocation is made explicitly in the context of "The Work" being licensed. So you can still sue a company like Facebook for unrelated projects and still be protected by the license.
By contrast Facebook's PATENTS license says that:
> "The license granted here under 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: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates ..."
Let me spell this out for you:
1. if Facebook infringes your IP, but you happen to use React, then you can't sue them without also risk infringing on their React-related IP and be counter-sued for it
2. their PATENTS creates a unidirectional relationship; when Facebook accepts your contributions, they are protected because MIT / BSD are said to have an "implicit patents grant" (which supposedly works in the US) due to the estoppel principle
Btw, Microsoft is taking steps to do what Facebook is doing as well. See for example how they are switching from Apache 2.0 to MIT and the disingenuous way they are communicating the change:
https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/3440
But folks, this is not how Open Source or Free Software is supposed to work. When you release something as Open Source, you need to allow others to use your work as they wish (Freedom 0, or in OSI parlance, no discrimination against fields of endeavor).
Patent-encumbered software is NOT Open Source or Free Software.
[+] [-] Gaelan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yladiz|8 years ago|reply
The main reason that I don't like the patent grant isn't because of React specifically, it's because Facebook revokes ANY patents if you sue them for patent infringement, even ones unconcerned with the technology you're suing them for. This is why I prefer OSS licenses with explicit patent grants better, because they're worded in such a way that the only patent grants you lose are the ones that concern the technology under license (see Apache 2.0).
[+] [-] JoshMnem|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electriclove|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThisCourtIsAnal|8 years ago|reply
So one can either ignore the PATENTS file altogether or to formally fork the repo while omitting this file and it would be as if that file never existed.
Facebooks' (et al.) claim that these two files together constitute the governing license should be challenged as fraudulent - if they want to relicense react under a new license that contains terms regarding patents they can do so but the last revision before that would still be BSD licensed and the community can fork it. </still not a lawyer>
[+] [-] jbverschoor|8 years ago|reply
If you have such a monopoly, only legal protection would protect you.
[+] [-] talkingtab|8 years ago|reply