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One thing I've thought about recently is Facebook's Patent grants, and it's one thing that makes me uneasy about using any open source technology from Facebook

by yladiz 10y ago

One thing I've thought about recently is Facebook's Patent grants, and it's one thing that makes me uneasy about using any open source technology from Facebook like React (I currently do but am thinking to move to Preact because of the nicer MIT license and that it's analogous to React in many ways) because they're generally given a patent grant. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if the grant would hold up in court since it's not actually in the license itself, only referenced in the readme but if I had a patent and Facebook infringed on it my license is terminated if I assert my patent rights against Facebook even if it is valid and doesn't pertain to specific React technologies. This has been discussed heavily in the past but suffice it to say it's pretty scary and bears thought. This library looks very useful for those who use React Native or want a layout engine in C# or Java for their mobile app, but as someone who works in an industry (bio/chem engineering) who develops applications around tools in that industry and thinking that Facebook may one day enter that field, or even if we create a software patent for some idea we create while developing the tools, it makes me uneasy whenever a new Facebook open source project, especially one with the potential to become popular in a specific area of software development, is introduced. Also, another thing to keep in mind is not every big company does this with their open source tech. For example, Angular and Visual Studio Code are both under MIT license.

olalonde 10y ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the license terms but I feel like this is a bit of a "Maserati Problem", at least, if you are not competing directly with Facebook. If you are worried you might want to sue Facebook for patent infringement some day, you could still use React today and switch to Preact or some other library "just in time".
- ebiester 10y ago
  Just because you are not competing with Facebook today does not mean that Facebook will not be competing with you tomorrow.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
aristus 10y ago
Please do not spread FUD, or at least clearly explain your worries. The patent clause only applies if you sue Facebook for patent infringement in React itself. It's a very clear defensive policy. Despite all the breathless blog posts claiming that you can lose your license for "competing" with Facebook, it is not true. https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556 https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556
- yladiz 10y ago
  I never said that you could lose your license for competing against Facebook, I said that you could lose your license if you have a patent and assert it against Facebook if it infringes. This is the patent grant from React, which is identical to the grant in the post's repo as well. The language in the patent grant is pretty clear and doesn't mention anything about React specifically: 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: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (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, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim. Also, your link doesn't actually dispel any fears I have. It specifically doesn't mention about if I sue Facebook for patent infringement if I have a valid patent that Facebook infringes upon, which is the main basis of my argument and worry.
  - tomnipotent 10y ago
    If you name React in your patent lawsuit against Facebook, your license for React is terminated. Other software licenses remained unaffected. That seems like a pretty reasonable stance for distributing an open source project.
comex 10y ago
This project is under the BSD license, which is equally silent about patent rights to the MIT license, making it ambiguous whether it applies to patents. The patent license is on top of that; Facebook's approach is basically strictly more permissive, patents-wise, than typical use of the MIT license. (But not as permissive as the Apache 2 license, which contains explicit patent grants with a "don't sue us" condition that only applies to the specific software being licensed.) Well, there's some argument that including a patent license makes the other license less likely to be construed as implicitly extending to patents, even if it says "additional". But you really shouldn't be depending on either the MIT or BSD license counting as a patent license. See also: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-b... Edit: I misremembered the scope of the Apache 2 patent license, sorry.
- yladiz 10y ago
  That's fair, and I respect Facebook's want to have specific patents language in their licenses. But my main fear is that the language is too broad and taken at face value wouldn't allow any kind of patent infringement to be fought against, regardless of its merits. I also wish that the language was in the license itself rather than as a separate grant because it's potentially confusing. I had a friend I was telling this about didn't know about this at all, and said he's happy that his company has lawyers that review this stuff because he would just copy the license without the separate grant and be done with it, which wouldn't suffice.
yodon 10y ago
This is one of the reasons companies seek patents, called a defensive patent strategy. The goal is to discourage competitors from suing you for patent violations by making sure you own a patent your competitors are likely to have violated. It creates a kind of "mutually assured destruction" that discourages either party from launching a patent war (this only works against real competitors, not against patent trolls, but it can still be a viable part of a company's IP strategy). In the case you describe, what it boils down to is yeah, if your business intends to sue Facebook for patent infringement, you probably shouldn't be dependent on any of Facebook's IP or patents for your business. There are lots of things companies do to discourage other companies from suing them. Giving out free software is one of the nicer ways a company can choose to go about it.
- yladiz 10y ago
  Let's say I have a patent for a technology outside of React, and even outside of software, such as some hardware patent. Why should me suing for infringement of that patent preclude me from using React when it (the patent infringement and React) are completely independent?
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Because facebook wants to avoid getting sued. React is their bat and ball so they set the rules. If you don't like the rules go and play elsewhere - it is not like there aren't hundreds of other frameworks you can use.
  - eriknstr 10y ago
    Because facebook said so in their README. Demands don't need to make sense but they need to be observed (whether that means respecting the demands or avoiding the people, the companies and the products that make such demands and thus not being affected in the first place).
  - EGreg 10y ago
    Because you agreed to use the software facebook architected, developed, tested and publicly made available for you for free, in exchange for letting them use ideas you developed and publicly described for free.
Steeeve 10y ago
I am curious to hear of anyone who has reviewed this license with their lawyers / legal departments and received a positive, non-cautionary response to go ahead and use the software and libraries covered under it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- olalonde 10y ago
  The React wiki has a non exhaustive list of users[0] which includes some rather large companies (BBC, Airbnb, Automattic, Atlassian, eBay, Netflix, etc.). I presume most of those larger companies had their legal departments approve its use. [0] https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React
  - Steeeve 10y ago
    That may be the case, but I personally would be surprised. My impression is that most companies don't do a good job of managing and monitoring dependency licensing. I have seen tooling that analyzes licenses, but not for node or client-side javascript. Maybe I'm just in the dark.
    - olalonde 10y ago
      That may be true in general but the React license has generated a lot of buzz. If you look at pretty much any Facebook project posted on HN, you'll find that one of the top comments is about the license. Also, the decision to use React is impactful enough that I'd expect most tech CTOs to know about it. I grant you that some might not take the license issue seriously enough to discuss it with legal counsel. To answer your original question, I found this statement by Automattic's legal counsel[0]: > “Automattic looked at the legal issues with Facebook’s patent license on React,” Sieminski said. “The termination provisions of the patent license aren’t ideal, but are not a blocker to using React as part of Calypso.” [0] https://wptavern.com/automattic-will-continue-to-use-react-js-in-calypso-despite-patent-clause https://wptavern.com/automattic-will-continue-to-use-react-j...
btown 10y ago
There's a deeper issue here I think (IANAL). If there is anything in Facebook's patent portfolio that is indeed "a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the [React] Software standing alone," then using Preact, which implements the same functionality using similar algorithms, may very well infringe on that patent. And... if a release of your software does not use React itself in favor of Preact, you were never given a license in the first place to that patent, so you'd be even more vulnerable to Facebook enforcing their IP rights! If you sue a company with competent lawyers, their defensive patent portfolio will be unleashed on you to the greatest extent possible, whether you intentionally infringed or not. If you use technology similar to Angular and sued Google, you'd be in a similar position. Facebook's patent grants simply codify this, and so they've taken the blame for something that was always hanging over every developer's head with any patented software anywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software#Infringement_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_soft...
amelius 10y ago
Yes, given two libraries A and B, which are equal in all respects except one is encumbered with vague licensing talk, pick the one without! It's a good engineering practice, and it will ensure that we, as a community, evolve towards zero-licensing libraries.
- amenghra 10y ago
  Except two libraries A and B are never equal in all respects. A library might have a stronger community or better documentation than the other. They might be equivalent today but evolve differently in the future. Etc. The choice between two libraries is never that easy.
- ec109685 10y ago
  Both React and hypothetical library B are encombered with possible Facebook patents. Only by using React are you assured that you aren't going to be in patent infringement with Facebook's patents given they provide you a license for React. By using Preact, you have no such patent grant.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
What's a hypothetical scenario that would be a problem? I assume your company is not developing UX patents and the concern is more around developing a suite of products that use a FB library and dealing with unexpected costs or restrictions? I would hate to avoid using what I thought were the most productive tools in anticipation of a very unlikely event. You'd essentially be paying a productivity penalty now, to try and avoid a productivity penalty in the future if you have to rewrite something. The odds of a company like yours in a vertical getting sued by Facebook I would guess are vanishingly small. Now if your core IP competes directly with FB I can see a little more risk because they could plausibly have strategic reasons to make your life difficult as well as a potential damages claim. However this would be a special case for only certain companies to worry about.
st3v3r 10y ago
"if I had a patent and Facebook infringed on it my license is terminated if I assert my patent rights against Facebook even if it is valid and doesn't pertain to specific React technologies." Do you have a patent that Facebook might infringe on?

by yladiz 10y ago

olalonde 10y ago

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the license terms but I feel like this is a bit of a "Maserati Problem", at least, if you are not competing directly with Facebook. If you are worried you might want to sue Facebook for patent infringement some day, you could still use React today and switch to Preact or some other library "just in time".

ebiester 10y ago
Just because you are not competing with Facebook today does not mean that Facebook will not be competing with you tomorrow.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

aristus 10y ago

Please do not spread FUD, or at least clearly explain your worries. The patent clause only applies if you sue Facebook for patent infringement in React itself. It's a very clear defensive policy. Despite all the breathless blog posts claiming that you can lose your license for "competing" with Facebook, it is not true. https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556 https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

yladiz 10y ago
I never said that you could lose your license for competing against Facebook, I said that you could lose your license if you have a patent and assert it against Facebook if it infringes. This is the patent grant from React, which is identical to the grant in the post's repo as well. The language in the patent grant is pretty clear and doesn't mention anything about React specifically: 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: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (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, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such counterclaim. Also, your link doesn't actually dispel any fears I have. It specifically doesn't mention about if I sue Facebook for patent infringement if I have a valid patent that Facebook infringes upon, which is the main basis of my argument and worry.
- tomnipotent 10y ago
  If you name React in your patent lawsuit against Facebook, your license for React is terminated. Other software licenses remained unaffected. That seems like a pretty reasonable stance for distributing an open source project.

comex 10y ago

This project is under the BSD license, which is equally silent about patent rights to the MIT license, making it ambiguous whether it applies to patents. The patent license is on top of that; Facebook's approach is basically strictly more permissive, patents-wise, than typical use of the MIT license. (But not as permissive as the Apache 2 license, which contains explicit patent grants with a "don't sue us" condition that only applies to the specific software being licensed.) Well, there's some argument that including a patent license makes the other license less likely to be construed as implicitly extending to patents, even if it says "additional". But you really shouldn't be depending on either the MIT or BSD license counting as a patent license. See also: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-b... Edit: I misremembered the scope of the Apache 2 patent license, sorry.

yladiz 10y ago
That's fair, and I respect Facebook's want to have specific patents language in their licenses. But my main fear is that the language is too broad and taken at face value wouldn't allow any kind of patent infringement to be fought against, regardless of its merits. I also wish that the language was in the license itself rather than as a separate grant because it's potentially confusing. I had a friend I was telling this about didn't know about this at all, and said he's happy that his company has lawyers that review this stuff because he would just copy the license without the separate grant and be done with it, which wouldn't suffice.

yodon 10y ago

This is one of the reasons companies seek patents, called a defensive patent strategy. The goal is to discourage competitors from suing you for patent violations by making sure you own a patent your competitors are likely to have violated. It creates a kind of "mutually assured destruction" that discourages either party from launching a patent war (this only works against real competitors, not against patent trolls, but it can still be a viable part of a company's IP strategy). In the case you describe, what it boils down to is yeah, if your business intends to sue Facebook for patent infringement, you probably shouldn't be dependent on any of Facebook's IP or patents for your business. There are lots of things companies do to discourage other companies from suing them. Giving out free software is one of the nicer ways a company can choose to go about it.

yladiz 10y ago
Let's say I have a patent for a technology outside of React, and even outside of software, such as some hardware patent. Why should me suing for infringement of that patent preclude me from using React when it (the patent infringement and React) are completely independent?
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Because facebook wants to avoid getting sued. React is their bat and ball so they set the rules. If you don't like the rules go and play elsewhere - it is not like there aren't hundreds of other frameworks you can use.
- eriknstr 10y ago
  Because facebook said so in their README. Demands don't need to make sense but they need to be observed (whether that means respecting the demands or avoiding the people, the companies and the products that make such demands and thus not being affected in the first place).
- EGreg 10y ago
  Because you agreed to use the software facebook architected, developed, tested and publicly made available for you for free, in exchange for letting them use ideas you developed and publicly described for free.

Steeeve 10y ago

I am curious to hear of anyone who has reviewed this license with their lawyers / legal departments and received a positive, non-cautionary response to go ahead and use the software and libraries covered under it.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
olalonde 10y ago
The React wiki has a non exhaustive list of users[0] which includes some rather large companies (BBC, Airbnb, Automattic, Atlassian, eBay, Netflix, etc.). I presume most of those larger companies had their legal departments approve its use. [0] https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React https://github.com/facebook/react/wiki/Sites-Using-React
- Steeeve 10y ago
  That may be the case, but I personally would be surprised. My impression is that most companies don't do a good job of managing and monitoring dependency licensing. I have seen tooling that analyzes licenses, but not for node or client-side javascript. Maybe I'm just in the dark.
  - olalonde 10y ago
    That may be true in general but the React license has generated a lot of buzz. If you look at pretty much any Facebook project posted on HN, you'll find that one of the top comments is about the license. Also, the decision to use React is impactful enough that I'd expect most tech CTOs to know about it. I grant you that some might not take the license issue seriously enough to discuss it with legal counsel. To answer your original question, I found this statement by Automattic's legal counsel[0]: > “Automattic looked at the legal issues with Facebook’s patent license on React,” Sieminski said. “The termination provisions of the patent license aren’t ideal, but are not a blocker to using React as part of Calypso.” [0] https://wptavern.com/automattic-will-continue-to-use-react-js-in-calypso-despite-patent-clause https://wptavern.com/automattic-will-continue-to-use-react-j...

btown 10y ago

There's a deeper issue here I think (IANAL). If there is anything in Facebook's patent portfolio that is indeed "a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the [React] Software standing alone," then using Preact, which implements the same functionality using similar algorithms, may very well infringe on that patent. And... if a release of your software does not use React itself in favor of Preact, you were never given a license in the first place to that patent, so you'd be even more vulnerable to Facebook enforcing their IP rights! If you sue a company with competent lawyers, their defensive patent portfolio will be unleashed on you to the greatest extent possible, whether you intentionally infringed or not. If you use technology similar to Angular and sued Google, you'd be in a similar position. Facebook's patent grants simply codify this, and so they've taken the blame for something that was always hanging over every developer's head with any patented software anywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software#Infringement_claims https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_soft...

amelius 10y ago

Yes, given two libraries A and B, which are equal in all respects except one is encumbered with vague licensing talk, pick the one without! It's a good engineering practice, and it will ensure that we, as a community, evolve towards zero-licensing libraries.

amenghra 10y ago
Except two libraries A and B are never equal in all respects. A library might have a stronger community or better documentation than the other. They might be equivalent today but evolve differently in the future. Etc. The choice between two libraries is never that easy.
ec109685 10y ago
Both React and hypothetical library B are encombered with possible Facebook patents. Only by using React are you assured that you aren't going to be in patent infringement with Facebook's patents given they provide you a license for React. By using Preact, you have no such patent grant.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

What's a hypothetical scenario that would be a problem? I assume your company is not developing UX patents and the concern is more around developing a suite of products that use a FB library and dealing with unexpected costs or restrictions? I would hate to avoid using what I thought were the most productive tools in anticipation of a very unlikely event. You'd essentially be paying a productivity penalty now, to try and avoid a productivity penalty in the future if you have to rewrite something. The odds of a company like yours in a vertical getting sued by Facebook I would guess are vanishingly small. Now if your core IP competes directly with FB I can see a little more risk because they could plausibly have strategic reasons to make your life difficult as well as a potential damages claim. However this would be a special case for only certain companies to worry about.

st3v3r 10y ago

"if I had a patent and Facebook infringed on it my license is terminated if I assert my patent rights against Facebook even if it is valid and doesn't pertain to specific React technologies." Do you have a patent that Facebook might infringe on?