7 ms·

Facebook's license is no more dangerous than regular MIT or BSD-style licenses. If you are OK with using MIT or BSD licensed software you should be OK with usin

Facebook's license is no more dangerous than regular MIT or BSD-style licenses. If you are OK with using MIT or BSD licensed software you should be OK with using Facebook's BSD + Patents software. Here is why: MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement. If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you. Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection. Major software like Ruby (BSD), Rails (MIT), and FreeBSD (BSD) use licenses without patent grants. Entire businesses are built on top of these pieces of software, e.g., GitHub (Ruby and Rails) and a lot of commercial hardware built on FreeBSD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_FreeBSD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_based_on_Free...). Read the patent grant for yourself: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS

hajile 9y ago
They have implicit patent grants while Facebook's does not. http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence
- antoncohen 9y ago
  I don't see how that changes anything. If you sue Facebook you lose the explicit patent grant, but you are still left with a BSD license that allows "redistribution and use in source and binary forms", so you still have the implicit patent grant.
  - rockdoe 9y ago
    This doesn't work if there's an explicit grant. You can't pretend the PATENTS file isn't there.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
saghm 9y ago
I don't do any webdev, so I have no horse in this race, but I find it plausible that some developers would be more worried about Facebook infringing their patents than the respective organizations that develop Ruby, Rails, and FreeBSD.
mcbits 9y ago
I've read it, and I'm pretty sure it says that if you initiate a patent lawsuit against Facebook, you lose the license to use React at all. It doesn't revert to BSD. (EDIT: Apparently that's wrong although the license could certainly be more clear about it.) If React doesn't implement any of their patents, the patent clause offers nothing extra. If it does, it would be damned nice to know which one(s). Do other libraries (other virtual DOMs, perhaps) infringe?
- antoncohen 9y ago
  No, you lose the patent license, not the copyright license. From Facebook's blog post: > The patent grant says that if you're going to use the software we've released under it, you lose the patent license from us if you sue us for patent infringement. https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...
  - fhrow4484 9y ago
    Which one has more value? A file included in the repo, written in legalese, on which Every single source code file's copyright headers point to (and the README file as well), or an ambigous blog post? Reading the file in its current form (https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933f6928f231dc0918f864/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933...), You lose the license to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the [React] Software.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      You lose the license granted in the PATENTS file, but you might not lose the license granted in the LICENSE file. (IANAL, so no idea whether that's true.)
  - mcbits 9y ago
    My reading must be off, then. Is "under any Necessary Claims" the magic phrase?
fhrow4484 9y ago
> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. > The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection. Could you provide a citation backing up your claims? if you read the patent grant for yourself: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS There's no mention of any patent grant coming with the software >> "The license granted hereunder will terminate" "The license" here is the one defined as: >> Facebook, Inc. ("Facebook") hereby grants to each recipient of the Software ("you") a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any Necessary Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software and the "Sofware" here is the one defined as : >> "Software" means the React software distributed by Facebook, Inc.
- delinka 9y ago
  You left out the definition of "Necessary Claims": > > A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone.
  - fhrow4484 9y ago
    Ok I see. But if you loose the license to any of those patents, you are infringing those patents by merely using React, aren't you? I understand the followup question other people have now: What are those patents?
jancsika 9y ago
> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. I see no reason to assume that it reverts "back to a normal plain old BSD license" in such a case. The article linked by Stallman's response that this is a nonfree license doesn't make that assumption, either: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00003.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...
DannyBee 9y ago
"MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement. " Every single lawyer i've ever spoken to strongly believes implied licenses will protect you very well here. Like, among us open source lawyers, it's pretty much the one thing people agree on. "If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you." This is just flat out false, and i'm not sure why you believe this. The termination is broader than the grant. The grant is for patents in a given piece of software, the termination crosses all software. Concretely: if you use react, and they sue you over patents in notreact, and you countersue, you do not lose your react patent license. They are still welcome to sue you over notreact, there is nothing in this license that will prevent that from happening. It only gave you patent rights to react. (It also says that if you sue them over notreact, you will lose all patent licenses in all software that use this license, which is why the termination is broader than the grant). "The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection." This is also an incorrect legal statement. Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. In this case, the terms of the implied grant were much better for people than the terms of the explicit one. So you are, in fact, losing something
- antoncohen 9y ago
  > Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. The BSD license grants explicit rights to use the software, thereby granting implicit rights to use the patents in the software while using the software as it is intended to be used. The sentence "redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted" doesn't go away because there is an "additional grant of patent rights".
  - DannyBee 9y ago
    Actually, it does! Courts will not find implied licenses when there is an explicit one. That's the whole definition of implied vs explicit!
goldenkey 9y ago
Nice try Zuck the Cuck
CodeWriter23 9y ago
> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. Um, no. Let's say you own patent A and Facebook has granted you rights to patents B and C. Then let's say Facebook infringes your patent A and you sue them. You lose the license to use patents B and C. That's what the PATENTS file says. Read it. What it doesn't say is because Facebook is publicly traded, it has a fiduciary duty to shareholders to defend all of its intellectual property so if you continue using anything covered by a Facebook PATENTS grant, you better be prepared to be sued for patent infringement. There is no implicit patent grant in the BSD license. Nothing in the BSD license shields the user of BSD-licensed software from patent litigation brought by any party.
- pdfernhout 9y ago
  From a lawyer: https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Facebook-Reactjs-License https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Faceboo... "True, the BSD License does not explicitly state that the licensee receives the right to use the licensed software under the licensor’s patents.* But I’ve never heard any lawyer postulate that that document does not grant a license to fully exploit the licensed software under all of the licensor’s intellectual property. Anyone who pushes that view is thinking too hard."
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    The PATENTS file doesn't explicitly state "litigants may continue to use the IP under the BSD license". What it does explicitly say is "litigants lose the patent rights", which in essence serves to revoke the BSD license. Can't have it both ways.
k__ 9y ago
That's how far the framework war has come. FUD about licensing when they can't win with technical finesse anymore.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  That is my sense as well.
tomelders 9y ago
The problem is that the descision to use react is not longer a descision for the developers in an organisation. It's now a descision for the legal team. And thats not good. This is the situation I now find myself in. The next few months will be spent removing react and immutable from the project I'm working on because th legal department say so. This is quite frankly, bullshit.
- jnbiche 9y ago
  Have you looked into preact? For most projects, it's just a few lines in webpack. Immutable js is different, but shouldn't be that much work.
  - tomelders 9y ago
    Yeah. And found it difficult to work with. The DOM seems to disconnect from the VDOM leading to oprhaned elements hanging around and no way to rectify it. Inferno is probably what we'll go with. But either way, it's a massive and undersireable compromise.

hajile 9y ago

They have implicit patent grants while Facebook's does not. http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence

antoncohen 9y ago
I don't see how that changes anything. If you sue Facebook you lose the explicit patent grant, but you are still left with a BSD license that allows "redistribution and use in source and binary forms", so you still have the implicit patent grant.
- rockdoe 9y ago
  This doesn't work if there's an explicit grant. You can't pretend the PATENTS file isn't there.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

saghm 9y ago

I don't do any webdev, so I have no horse in this race, but I find it plausible that some developers would be more worried about Facebook infringing their patents than the respective organizations that develop Ruby, Rails, and FreeBSD.

mcbits 9y ago

I've read it, and I'm pretty sure it says that if you initiate a patent lawsuit against Facebook, you lose the license to use React at all. It doesn't revert to BSD. (EDIT: Apparently that's wrong although the license could certainly be more clear about it.) If React doesn't implement any of their patents, the patent clause offers nothing extra. If it does, it would be damned nice to know which one(s). Do other libraries (other virtual DOMs, perhaps) infringe?

antoncohen 9y ago
No, you lose the patent license, not the copyright license. From Facebook's blog post: > The patent grant says that if you're going to use the software we've released under it, you lose the patent license from us if you sue us for patent infringement. https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...
- fhrow4484 9y ago
  Which one has more value? A file included in the repo, written in legalese, on which Every single source code file's copyright headers point to (and the README file as well), or an ambigous blog post? Reading the file in its current form (https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933f6928f231dc0918f864/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/b8ba8c83f318b84e42933...), You lose the license to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the [React] Software.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    You lose the license granted in the PATENTS file, but you might not lose the license granted in the LICENSE file. (IANAL, so no idea whether that's true.)
- mcbits 9y ago
  My reading must be off, then. Is "under any Necessary Claims" the magic phrase?

fhrow4484 9y ago

> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. > The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection. Could you provide a citation backing up your claims? if you read the patent grant for yourself: https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS There's no mention of any patent grant coming with the software >> "The license granted hereunder will terminate" "The license" here is the one defined as: >> Facebook, Inc. ("Facebook") hereby grants to each recipient of the Software ("you") a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any Necessary Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software and the "Sofware" here is the one defined as : >> "Software" means the React software distributed by Facebook, Inc.

delinka 9y ago
You left out the definition of "Necessary Claims": > > A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone.
- fhrow4484 9y ago
  Ok I see. But if you loose the license to any of those patents, you are infringing those patents by merely using React, aren't you? I understand the followup question other people have now: What are those patents?

jancsika 9y ago

> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. I see no reason to assume that it reverts "back to a normal plain old BSD license" in such a case. The article linked by Stallman's response that this is a nonfree license doesn't make that assumption, either: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01/msg00003.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

DannyBee 9y ago

"MIT and BSD licenses don't have any patent grants, unlike the Apache 2.0 license. If you use MIT/BSD open source software, and some functionality of that software is patented by the author, you could be sued for patent infringement. " Every single lawyer i've ever spoken to strongly believes implied licenses will protect you very well here. Like, among us open source lawyers, it's pretty much the one thing people agree on. "If you use software licensed under Facebook's BSD + Patents license, and the author of the software (Facebook) has patented technology in the software (which AFAIK they don't), the author CANNOT sue you." This is just flat out false, and i'm not sure why you believe this. The termination is broader than the grant. The grant is for patents in a given piece of software, the termination crosses all software. Concretely: if you use react, and they sue you over patents in notreact, and you countersue, you do not lose your react patent license. They are still welcome to sue you over notreact, there is nothing in this license that will prevent that from happening. It only gave you patent rights to react. (It also says that if you sue them over notreact, you will lose all patent licenses in all software that use this license, which is why the termination is broader than the grant). "The BSD + Patents license is strictly better than the regular BSD/MIT licenses. You lose no rights, you may gain some patent protection." This is also an incorrect legal statement. Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. In this case, the terms of the implied grant were much better for people than the terms of the explicit one. So you are, in fact, losing something

antoncohen 9y ago
> Once their is an explicit grant, any implicit grant you would have gotten is extinguished. The BSD license grants explicit rights to use the software, thereby granting implicit rights to use the patents in the software while using the software as it is intended to be used. The sentence "redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted" doesn't go away because there is an "additional grant of patent rights".
- DannyBee 9y ago
  Actually, it does! Courts will not find implied licenses when there is an explicit one. That's the whole definition of implied vs explicit!

goldenkey 9y ago

Nice try Zuck the Cuck

CodeWriter23 9y ago

> Now if you turn around and use the author for patent infringement for something else, you lose the patent grant that came with the software, and you are back to a normal plain old BSD license. Um, no. Let's say you own patent A and Facebook has granted you rights to patents B and C. Then let's say Facebook infringes your patent A and you sue them. You lose the license to use patents B and C. That's what the PATENTS file says. Read it. What it doesn't say is because Facebook is publicly traded, it has a fiduciary duty to shareholders to defend all of its intellectual property so if you continue using anything covered by a Facebook PATENTS grant, you better be prepared to be sued for patent infringement. There is no implicit patent grant in the BSD license. Nothing in the BSD license shields the user of BSD-licensed software from patent litigation brought by any party.

pdfernhout 9y ago
From a lawyer: https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Facebook-Reactjs-License https://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Faceboo... "True, the BSD License does not explicitly state that the licensee receives the right to use the licensed software under the licensor’s patents.* But I’ve never heard any lawyer postulate that that document does not grant a license to fully exploit the licensed software under all of the licensor’s intellectual property. Anyone who pushes that view is thinking too hard."
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  The PATENTS file doesn't explicitly state "litigants may continue to use the IP under the BSD license". What it does explicitly say is "litigants lose the patent rights", which in essence serves to revoke the BSD license. Can't have it both ways.

k__ 9y ago

That's how far the framework war has come. FUD about licensing when they can't win with technical finesse anymore.

whipoodle 9y ago
That is my sense as well.

tomelders 9y ago

The problem is that the descision to use react is not longer a descision for the developers in an organisation. It's now a descision for the legal team. And thats not good. This is the situation I now find myself in. The next few months will be spent removing react and immutable from the project I'm working on because th legal department say so. This is quite frankly, bullshit.

jnbiche 9y ago
Have you looked into preact? For most projects, it's just a few lines in webpack. Immutable js is different, but shouldn't be that much work.
- tomelders 9y ago
  Yeah. And found it difficult to work with. The DOM seems to disconnect from the VDOM leading to oprhaned elements hanging around and no way to rectify it. Inferno is probably what we'll go with. But either way, it's a massive and undersireable compromise.