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Finally, people are beginning to realize the insanity of this entire PATENTS file situation! When I first brought up how misguided people were for embracing Re
by numair 9y ago
Finally, people are beginning to realize the insanity of this entire PATENTS file situation!
When I first brought up how misguided people were for embracing React and projects with this license, I was downvoted to hell on HN. But really, everyone, THINK ABOUT IT. This is a company that glorifies and celebrates IP theft from others, and lionizes their employees who successfully clone others’ projects. They’ve built their entire business on the back of open source software that wasn’t ever encumbered with the sort of nonsense they’ve attached to their own projects. And this industry is just going to let them have it, because the stuff they are putting out is shiny and “convenient” and free?
Having known so many people involved with Facebook for so long, I have come up with a phrase to describe the cultural phenomenon I’ve witnessed among them – ladder kicking. Basically, people who get a leg up from others, and then do everything in their power to ensure nobody else manages to get there. No, it’s not “human nature” or “how it works.” Silicon Valley and the tech industry at large weren’t built by these sorts of people, and we need to be more active in preventing this mind-virus from spreading.
By the way, the fact that Facebook is using this on their mostly-derivative nonsense isn’t what should concern you. It’s that Google has decided, as a defensive measure, to copy Facebook’s move. Take a look at the code repo for Fuschia and you’ll see what I mean. Imagine if using Kubernetes meant you could never sue Google?
- rhizome 9y agoWas Zuck taking some Business & Econ classes in his school days? This is from 2002: https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Perspective/dp/1843310279 https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...
- rdtsc 9y ago> They’ve built their entire business on the back of open source software that wasn’t ever encumbered with the sort of nonsense they’ve attached to their own projects. So did Amazon apparently and others. At least Google have open sourced many interesting and useful projects so they have given back. Microsoft have been open sourcing things lately too. Others so so.
- blazespin 9y agoThe problem is that a critical protection against large companies is via patents or at least the threat of. Without them, the ability to dethrone them becomes very limited.
- SwellJoe 9y agoCan you name an example of when a patent was used by a small company in the software industry to "dethrone" a very large company? I'm having a hard time coming up with any examples; the lawsuits that come to mind are patent trolls, where the "little" company is a non-practicing entity so they can't be counter-sued for violating the giant's portfolio of patents. But, you sound pretty certain, so I want to figure out where I'm wrong.
- blazespin 9y agoDethrone, no, but certainly sue for 100s of millions of dollars.
- SwellJoe 9y agoOK, can you name an example of that?
- blazespin 9y agoIt's the whole point of patents. You want me to give you a list of patent lawsuits? :) Google is your friend.
- SwellJoe 9y agoI want an example of a case where a small software company successfully litigated a patent lawsuit against a huge company like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. Preferably one where the instigator of the lawsuit was legitimately defending something novel and innovative. This is subjective, of course, and I tend to come down on the side of software not being something that should be patentable...but, it is patentable, so there are patents, so I'm asking: where are the lawsuits brought by small companies that are actually in the business they've patented and have sued a huge company? You've made it sound like it happens all the time. I've been in the tech industry for two decades, and I can't think of any (though I'm sure they must exist). I assumed you had some cases in mind when you made the comment earlier, and I wondered what it was. I'm not demanding you go search for such a case. But, absent some sort of example, I'm gonna continue to assume it (almost) never happens.
- cma 9y agoYep, the patent grant is not fully reciprocal. As I understand it: To use React, you give Facebook permission to use any of your software patents (edit: all patents, even on a new jet engine) throughout your whole company. Facebook gives you permission to use only the software patents necessary for React. If your company sues Facebook over an unrelated software patent (edit: as above, any patent), your React license (to the React patents) is pulled and if your business has any dependency on React that part of your business is broken until you can port to something else, or you are in license violation if you keep using it. On the other hand, if Facebook sues you over a software patent (edit: any patent) that isn't related to React, they are still free to do so (edit: you become free to defensively sue with other patents in response and not lose your license to React patents, meaning with the nuclear analogy below you give Facebook "first strike" capabilities but are allowed to keep a retaliatory-only arsenal). So there is a big asymmetry: all of your software patents for a few of ours. (edit: all of your patents for a few react software patents) It's a nuclear arms reduction agreement where Facebook gives up 1% of nukes in exchange for co-signers giving up 100%. (edit: as pointed out below, it is a much worse deal: you give up all patents on everything, not just software patents; Facebook only gives up software patents on React)
- carussell 9y ago> As I understand it: To use React, you give Facebook permission to use any of your software patents throughout your whole company. That is, on its face, absolutely untrue. Nowhere in the React patent terms does it specify that you grant Facebook rights to use your patents--not even to ones related to React. That's something that isn't in the React terms, nor does it seem to show up in any legal analyses published online from a lawyer making that claim. (None of the analyses I've seen, at least; if you found some, please post them.) In fact, the only place where this claim does crop up is in off-the-cuff message board comments. 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 yours that make claims like the one above.
- deleted 9y ago
- FRex 9y agoRakNet does that too (it's owned by Facebook via Occulus for a while now, Facebook bought Occulus then Occulus bought RakNet): https://github.com/facebookarchive/RakNet/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebookarchive/RakNet/blob/master/PATENT... Is this widespread at all or is it just Facebook..? Edit: I'm glad to be downvoted for asking a genuine fucking question if anyone else does this since Apache mentions Facebook and the only place I ran into PATENTS file is another Facebook property and googling brings nothing up except more React..
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cosinetau 9y agoI love that while we discuss this awful attitude by the corporate giants like Facebook and Google, internally in "our own" (HN really isn't the community's, get a grip) we are CONSTANTLY worrying about getting downvoted for asking what we see as a genuine question. There's a larger problem here, and I feel it comes down to our collective attitudes.
- olalonde 9y ago> This is a company that glorifies and celebrates IP theft from others, and lionizes their employees who successfully clone others’ projects. What are you referring to?
- kakarot 9y agoHere's a good example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tA3NNKF0Q
- madeofpalk 9y agoThe irony of using Youtube, a platform that rose to fame after hosting pirated Viacom content, to highlight IP theft.
- kakarot 9y agoThe real irony would be that if I found this video hosted anywhere else, it would be IP theft because the creators post it to Youtube. Your comment is unnecessary.
- Buge 9y agoWhat percent of the top videos on Youtube were pirated from Viacom? Because according to the Kurzgesagt video, 73% of the top 1000 Facebook videos were pirated from Youtube.
- magic_quotes 9y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3029872 http://archive.is/Mjfg0 http://archive.is/Mjfg0
- cflewis 9y agoImportant: IANAL and I am commenting from my personal reading In the case of Fuschia, I don't see any more restriction of end-user rights than Apache 2.0 would give you. The only real difference is this line: > This grant does not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of this implementation. That makes it clear if you make a modification to Fuschia, that infringes on a patent that Google holds, that you don't automatically get rights to that patent too. Apache 2.0 doesn't mention that, but it appears implicit to me as Apache 2.0 only gives you patent rights to whatever is in the source.
- cyphar 9y agoNot to mention that patent law explcitly does not accept independent discovery as a defence for patent infringement, so I doubt that Apache 2.0 has any defences for that. I also don't believe GPLv3 does either but I would have to read through it again.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- blazespin 9y agoYah, I was particularly amused by Zuck when he gave a speech at his ol' stomping grounds suggesting everyone should focus on public works rather than companies competing with facebook. Very thematic, you have to give him credit.
- morecoffee 9y agoRe Google: You are mistaken. A big open source project by Google, gRPC, recently switched from BSD+Patents to Apache 2.0. https://github.com/grpc/grpc/pull/11432 https://github.com/grpc/grpc-java/pull/3047 https://github.com/grpc/grpc-go/pull/1290
- dankohn1 9y agogRPC relicensed to Apache-2.0 as part of joining CNCF. We explain the reasoning here: https://www.cncf.io/blog/2017/02/01/cncf-recommends-aslv2/ https://www.cncf.io/blog/2017/02/01/cncf-recommends-aslv2/ (I'm the executive director of CNCF and wrote the blog post. )
- ergo14 9y agoI don't think Google is doing the same - look at Polymer for example. You also have a patent grant but it expires if you try to attack possible patents related to Polymer itself - its like in Apache 2.0 which is more sane in my opinion.
- Camila454 9y agoMy last pay check was $11000 working 12 hours a week online.My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week.I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out.This is what i do. ........... http://www.joinmate2.Com http://www.joinmate2.Com
- computerex 9y agoWhat the hell?
- loceng 9y agoI had the same downvoted experience. Hopefully this will evolve into a full victory - https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/10191 https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/10191
- CommanderData 9y agoThank you. People shy away from posting common sense. It is insanity. Calling what it is has become unpopular amongst the hipsters.
- chrisco255 9y agoThis was covered a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12108273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12108273
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- literallycancer 9y agoAre there any cases where someone using React sued Facebook?
- shp0ngle 9y agoIf my company don't ever plan to sue Facebook for patents, is not involved with patents, doesn't care about patents and everyone leading the company thinks patents are bullshit, why should I worry?
- st3fan 9y agoYou should worry because you don’t have a magic orb that lets you look into the future. What if you got acquired. What if something unexpected happens. What if you got pulled into some suit against Facebook. There are a ton of things that could potentially happen.
- bedros 9y agoI was downvoted like hell too when I commented that "only a fool will use react in their code because of its license"
- pdfernhout 9y agoYeah, I've been trying since November 2015 to get Automattic to understand the Facebook BSD+PATENTS problem with their Calypso frontend to WordPress that uses React. Just added another comment to the issue linking back to this story: "Replace React with Mithril for licensing reasons" https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/650#issuecomment-315646622 https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/issues/650#issuecom... Of course, that issue was rapidly closed with essentially a "we don't think there is anything to worry about here" -- ignoring that even if Automattic may not have patents to defend, any of their customers who has patents could face an issue using Calypso. All this is made more confusing by the fact that Facebook changed the React license over time from Apache to BSD+WORSE_PATENTS and then to BSD+LESS_BAD_PATENTS. And it looks like Automattic may have started using React when it was Apache licensed. So they got the rug pulled out from under them by trusting Facebook. I can wonder if their code might be considered to have grandfathered Apache patent licensing rights? The Fuchsia license by Google (at least the one file I looked at) does not seem to me to be that different from other FOSS Patent licenses in that it is not as broad as Facebook's and just covers patent claims about Fuchsia itself. So I would not put it in the same category as React's much broader PATENT retaliation clause which applies for any disagreement over any patents with Facebook whether they are related to React or not. So it is more like if you sue about Fuchsia patents you can't use Fuchsia. https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/magenta/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror/magenta/blob/master/PATENT...
- amauta 9y agoYour second paragraph describes Mark Zuckerberg as a person since his younger days.
- jaredklewis 9y agoIf we can just remove emotion for a little bit, and coldly apply law and the terms of the license to fact, the picture is really not so dire. - As stated in the standard BSD 3 clause, you're more or less licensed to do whatever you want with the software. - The above doesn't give you a patent grant (at least not an explicit one), so Facebook also grants you a license to use any patents they have associated with the software. - The ONLY possible way you can lose the above patent grant is if YOU sue Facebook for patent infringement. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that everyone working at Facebook is a child of Satan, the only thing your company has to do to not lose the patent grant is NOT SUE Facebook for patent infringement. Seems pretty simple, no? If your company is one that plans to, as part of its business plan, make money by suing companies like Facebook for patent infringement (which I have nothing against by the way), probably don't use react . Everyone else, what is there to lose? Is the BSD-3 + PATENTS as nice as the Apache 2? No. Is it anything to get hysterical over? I can't see why.
- yladiz 9y agoIt's because it covers any unrelated patents, not just the ones related to React. You can't sue Facebook or its subsidiaries, like Oculus or Instagram, for patent infringement, e.g. if Oculus were to infringe on your VR or AR patent, without losing a grant to any patents that may cover React owned by Facebook. It's unknown that Facebook has any patents for React, but if it did, it could countersue you simply because you rightly assert your patent against their infringing technology. If you own a company or are part of a university that has a patent and Facebook infringes, then you can't really use any of their open source products that have this specific grant, rather than not being able to use the specific product that they are infringing upon, if any. It's their prerogative to disallow that, but it goes against the spirit of open source, in my opinion. I speculate that this grant was probably written in this way to ward off NPEs, but I doubt any of those NPEs actually would use React and so in reality it causes issues for pretty much anyone else that cares.
- Yizahi 9y agoIn this thread (unrelated) - nobody can spell fuchsia :) https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/ (at the end of post)
- vedanta 9y agoCan't believe how great it is that a developer needs to check the license of open source libraries before using them.