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> Their decision was not a legal decision about the compatibility of projects with this license. As has always been the case, source code licensed under the Fa

> Their decision was not a legal decision about the compatibility of projects with this license. As has always been the case, source code licensed under the Facebook BSD + Patents license can be combined with source code licensed under other open source licenses like BSD, MIT, Apache 2.0, and GPL. What complete, tone deaf newspeak. If a BSD-licensed project uses code with a Facebook BSD license, the project is now Facebook BSD licensed. That means it's incompatible with the BSD license.

votepaunchy 9y ago
The additional Patents clause can simply be disregarded or, if not, then just file a patent lawsuit against Facebook. The plain BSD license does not offer a patent grant so there is no incompatibility. The Apache Software License does grant a patent license [0] (as does GPLv3) so is incompatible with either of these BSD licenses (unless an 'implied' grant is assumed). [0] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#patent http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#patent
brianmurphy 9y ago
Not tone deaf at all. The BSD license explicitly permits reuse in differently licensed software. This is the ultimate disagreement of what software freedom means. GPL people think derivatives of their software should remain free. (the viral nature of GPL) Strong BSD proponents believe the freedom to incorporate the software into non-BSD projects (including closed software) is the ultimate freedom. It sounds like you are more in the copyleft/GPL camp if you are concerned with derivative works remaining compatible with the original license.
rhizome 9y ago
The way I read it, ASF denied FB's BSD+Patents license in a mysterious bureaucratic decision that will cause a lot of pain for companies that use React, while FB's decision to create the BSD+Patents license was an altruistic move designed to benefit the software ecosystem and reduce their patent litigation overhead. I believe FB is at the "pounding on the table" stage.
- gstein67 9y ago
  The ASF does not want downstream users to be caught by more restrictions than those of the ALv2. The BSD+Patents licensing imposes more restrictions; thus, Apache projects cannot depend upon software under that license. This is pretty clear, and the ASF has been operating under this "no more restrictive than the Apache license" since its origin.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    I know, I was satirizing the tone of FB's post, where ASF are weird meanies and FB is just trying to give everybody sunshine and lollipops.

votepaunchy 9y ago

The additional Patents clause can simply be disregarded or, if not, then just file a patent lawsuit against Facebook. The plain BSD license does not offer a patent grant so there is no incompatibility. The Apache Software License does grant a patent license [0] (as does GPLv3) so is incompatible with either of these BSD licenses (unless an 'implied' grant is assumed). [0] http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#patent http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0#patent

brianmurphy 9y ago

Not tone deaf at all. The BSD license explicitly permits reuse in differently licensed software. This is the ultimate disagreement of what software freedom means. GPL people think derivatives of their software should remain free. (the viral nature of GPL) Strong BSD proponents believe the freedom to incorporate the software into non-BSD projects (including closed software) is the ultimate freedom. It sounds like you are more in the copyleft/GPL camp if you are concerned with derivative works remaining compatible with the original license.

rhizome 9y ago

The way I read it, ASF denied FB's BSD+Patents license in a mysterious bureaucratic decision that will cause a lot of pain for companies that use React, while FB's decision to create the BSD+Patents license was an altruistic move designed to benefit the software ecosystem and reduce their patent litigation overhead. I believe FB is at the "pounding on the table" stage.

gstein67 9y ago
The ASF does not want downstream users to be caught by more restrictions than those of the ALv2. The BSD+Patents licensing imposes more restrictions; thus, Apache projects cannot depend upon software under that license. This is pretty clear, and the ASF has been operating under this "no more restrictive than the Apache license" since its origin.
- rhizome 9y ago
  I know, I was satirizing the tone of FB's post, where ASF are weird meanies and FB is just trying to give everybody sunshine and lollipops.