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This article raises so much unfounded FUD it's hard to believe the author is serious. 1. Uncertain Roadmap - Does anyone seriously doubt FB's commitment to RN?

This article raises so much unfounded FUD it's hard to believe the author is serious. 1. Uncertain Roadmap - Does anyone seriously doubt FB's commitment to RN? When they themselves dogfood it? Or is it more likely they are just too busy making progress (since as the author points out they release every 1-2 weeks) to release a multiyear ROADMAP? 2. Patents - Is anyone here planning on suing FACEBOOK? Who amongst us has the team of lawyers to undergo that? This is for 99.999% of people not a legitimate concern. This is an RMS concern. 3. Javascript - New versions of Javascript address the vast majority of this. Type errors? Use well supported Typescript or Flow 4. Dependencies - This is a result of the Javascript communities overly enthusiastic packaging efforts. This is not an apples to apples comparison, but of all the cons mentioned, sure this is legit. 5. Alternatives - ...and Windows Phone? Seriously? I was rooting like hell for MSFT, but this is just not a thing. I'd rather cover 99.6% of users twice as fast than 99.999 of users painfully using Appcelerator

arihant 9y ago
Regarding your second point -- that also includes the fact that you cannot sue any of the React contributors, not just Facebook. If I have a pull request on React, I can copy everything you ever built on React, down to the interface. It doesn't matter how much I copy because you cannot sue me without losing license to the very thing you used to build it, and thereby not having right to build it in the first place. Read the agreement in full, till point (iii). > (iii) against any party relating to the Software.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  No you do not lose the copyright license to use React in your code base. It is BSD. You only lose patent grants in the event you sue Facebook. In the event you sue Facebook, you're going to have to comb through your entire product code base and implementations for possible infringement against their portfolio of thousands of patents because you can bet your ass their legal team is going to come after you in retaliation. That is the nature of patent wars.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  > I can copy everything you ever built on React, down to the interface Downvoted for FUD. That license is about patents, not copyright.
mtviewdave 9y ago
> Does anyone seriously doubt FB's commitment to RN? When they themselves dogfood it? After the shutdown of Parse, I don't see how anyone could avoid having doubt about Facebook's commitment to React Native, or to anything else outside of their core business.
- oakesm9 9y ago
  Parse was never used internally at Facebook I don't think. React Native is used for major parts of the main app and in parts of Instagram. I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison.
  - askafriend 9y ago
    What major parts of the main Facebook app is React Native used for? Serious question. In the Instagram app, really only the settings screens and the bookmarks feature are written in RN - 2 of the simplest features in the entire app.
    - LeoNatan25 9y ago
      FB app uses it for esoteric views. Most portions of the app is rendered using Component Kit.
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      Not true, see link: https://engineering.instagram.com/react-native-at-instagram-dd828a9a90c7 https://engineering.instagram.com/react-native-at-instagram-... Push Notifications, Edit Profile, Photos Of view, Post Promote, Comment Moderation, Lead Gen Ads, SMS Captcha...and that was in February. They are ramping up their usage all the time.
      - askafriend 9y ago
        I think these examples only strengthen my larger point right? I want to see examples of React Native usage in the feed or the main profile architecture. Something critical.
dboreham 9y ago
>Is anyone here planning on suing FACEBOOK? Who amongst us has the team of lawyers to undergo that? This is for 99.999% of people not a legitimate concern. I don't think it is wise to think about this in these narrow terms. Consider the following scenario: Avoidance of these problematic license terms becomes "a thing" in the industry that moves and shakers, but not the likes of us, are worried about. You might have aspirations to sell your company to BigCo, or get investment from VCs. Now we have a concern that use of problematic license code is a poison pill that these investors are not willing to swallow. You aren't considering suing Facebook, but they might think about it. We saw exactly this with GLP'ed code in the past (I have signed a couple of deals where I had to pledge on a stack of bibles that we did not have any GPL code in our tree).
- chrisco255 9y ago
  If they want to go to patent war with Facebook, they're going to have to answer to Facebook's patent portfolio counterclaims, whether they own companies which use React or not. Facebook owns thousands of patents they have bought over the years. Your company or startup should focus on building a great product and attracting users.
  - leereeves 9y ago
    What happens if you use RN and one of your "corporate affiliates" sues Facebook?
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      Or happen to own a few shares in a BigCorp that decides to sue Facebook over any patent?
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      The use of RN doesn't necessarily mean you are violating Facebook's patents, whatever they may be. RN is still published with a BSD license. One of your corporate affiliates better know they're starting a patent war and their code base will be analyzed for patent infringement counterclaims by Facebook's attorneys.
RyanShook 9y ago
Are there any examples of Facebook actually using React Native in a crucial way? All I've seen are parts of their native apps that could be replaced relatively easily. I don't think the "Facebook won't kill React Native because they use it" argument holds as much weight as we'd like to believe.
- yladiz 9y ago
  Isn't the Facebook mobile app made with React Native?
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    No. I've seen this written many many times, but where is the proof? The Facebook app has 230MB of native binary in there on iOS. It uses very little RN.
    - yladiz 9y ago
      I just looked it up. They don't use it for the entire app, but they do use it for specific parts [1]. Since this was written over a year ago I wouldn't be surprised if more was converted. 1: https://code.facebook.com/posts/895897210527114/dive-into-react-native-performance/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/895897210527114/dive-into-re...
      - LeoNatan25 9y ago
        As I said, they use it for some of the most esoteric screens. That's hardly "using" it. I have it on good authority that some portions of FB (such as Messenger) flat-out refuse to use it. It doesn't not instill confidence.
        yladiz 9y ago
        Esoteric might not be the right word, but I see your point. Without hearing from Facebook first hand, though, I don't want to discredit their internal use of React Native, especially since it is verifiably in products that they use, e.g. Facebook and Instagram mobile apps.
cookiecaper 9y ago
>2. Patents - Is anyone here planning on suing FACEBOOK? Who amongst us has the team of lawyers to undergo that? This is for 99.999% of people not a legitimate concern. This is an RMS concern. First, "RMS concerns" dismissed as silly and fantastic by "practical people" have been mostly proven totally valid. His dystopian essay "The Right to Read" [0] only becomes more relevant every year. I've had to check my Amazon account 3-4 times to see if the book a friend and I were discussing supported "borrowing" it out for a limited time. Each time I've checked, it hasn't. Circumventing Amazon's controls puts my Amazon account at risk, which is hooked to my life in a lot of significant ways (AWS anyone?). RMS may lack social graces but he is not a dummy. If anything, calling something an "RMS concern" should only call extra attention to its importance, by indicating that there's likely an understated risk that will go unrecognized by others for years. ------- Second, you never know when you'll be in the 0.001%, and that's not a position you want to find yourself in if you are. Facebook is concerned about maintaining its position as the dominant social platform. When you're on a meteoric tear, they're going to bring suit against you whether it's justified or not just to try to starve you out and get you to fold, and ideally to find some reason why an injunction should be issued forbidding your site's continued operation. This license could certainly aid in that. Things don't have to be very common to be unacceptably risky. Most unacceptable risks are in fact quite rare; you can go years riding in a car without a seatbelt or riding a motorbike without a helmet and be no worse for the wear. The problem is that one time, years down the road, when it does matter. When failing to do that little thing will result in permanent, massive loss and/or damage. Maybe it won't happen to you, but it's so easy not to take the risk, that it's stupid to ever do so. If you're building a product that you hope succeeds, it's stupid to use React or other software that contains a legal poison pill like this. It may not matter most of the time, but when it does matter, it really matters. The comparative cost of using Mithril or Preact or Vue is much, much more attractive than the cost of engaging in a multi-million dollar legal controversy with one of the world's most important companies, on one of the rare occasions when it really does matter. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
dave7 9y ago
I raised an eyebrow at Windows Phone being given 20% share on the "Portability" scale. And later again with 30% for MacOS. But really, those charts at the end say it all for this particular developer - if he feels only 60% "Productivity" using React Native compared to 90% on competing platforms, his choice is obvious. I imagine for many developers the opposite (or even more so) is the case.
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  By your "developers", you mean JavaScript developers that only know JavaScript and are not willing to learn anything else? I am not familiar with many "native" developers who are more productive in RN.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    I'm a native iOS & Android developer, but treat native codebases as specialities now I've learned React Native. The latter is far more productive for me. If I were only building one codebase, then the differences would be marginal (perhaps Android/kotlin would be marginally faster to build). But for an iOS & Android app, there's no comparison: pure native in this case is overhead I could rarely afford.
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    I'm a native iOS developer, and I'm far more productive with React Native. I can't imagine how anyone wouldn't be, compared to building native iOS and Android apps in parallel. You also don't get very far with React Native if you only know JavaScript. I've had to write a lot of Objective C and Java for native modules, and I picked up C# to integrate libraries for Windows Phone.
    - crispinb 9y ago
      My experience exactly. There's an odd sneer often thrown about re 'knowing javascript'. From what I've seen of this region of the open-source javascript world (react, redux etc), much of it is at least as good and thoughtful code as I typically find in the native iOS and Android world.
Lazare 9y ago
> This is an RMS concern. Stallman is on record as saying he's fine with the patent clause. :)
- danmaz74 9y ago
  Maybe because he's against software patents in the first place? ;)
dwhitney 9y ago
Yes. Dear God. It's just silly. The worst part of the whole thing is how un-silly it looks. The author must have spent at least a week (probably more) putting this together. I don't envy his manager. One of the toughest problems a manager has to deal with is an incredibly passionate engineer who is clearly wrong. How do you talk this guy down? Tough job.
- brockers 9y ago
  Great point! This comment provided more incite that the whole of the article.
- chii 9y ago
  if this engineer is as rational as he believes himself to be, then using rational arguments about why the risks are less than the gains is the best way to convince him.
- a_c 9y ago
  The post seems to be from 2016 https://github.com/arielelkin/arielelkin.github.io/commits/master/articles/why-im-not-a-react-native-developer.html https://github.com/arielelkin/arielelkin.github.io/commits/m...
avodonosov 9y ago
Where do people get time to write posts of that length?
brynjolf 9y ago
What should I do if I think you are spreading FUD?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
user5994461 9y ago
1. The world is full of framework-of-the-day made by Google, Facebook or Microsoft that was marketed as the next big thing of the century backed by unlimited commitment, and ended up abandoned without notice a couple of years later. 2. Not everyone is a small company with nothing to lose.
- oceanswave 9y ago
  Oddly enough, Microsoft doesn't have its own client side ui framework, they build typescript and some other component stacks but leverage other UI frameworks in their products. React seems big in their office division - with outlook.com, office web and sharepoint using a lot of react - but pitch angular seemingly everywhere else.
wdb 9y ago
Regarding (2) my team might not have plans to sue Facebook but one of other 40.000 colleagues of mine might in the future. Maybe they want to sue FB because they use some of the company's VR patents through Oculus. Now I have to admit I don't know if their patents clause has any validity when we don't do business in the US, though.
ungzd 9y ago
> 1. Uncertain Roadmap Qt is still widely used despite lots of insane company merges (Trolltech -> Nokia -> Microsoft -> Digia -> Qt company). Probably because it's opensource. > 2. Patents If Facebook has patent for dynamic rebuilding of GUI from xml-like tree, then it may sue you for using XUL, XAML or your own code that does the same. > 3. Javascript Complains about type safety is laughable when compared to building apps directly in Java and Objective C. > 5. Alternatives > Appcelerator Oh lol

arihant 9y ago

Regarding your second point -- that also includes the fact that you cannot sue any of the React contributors, not just Facebook. If I have a pull request on React, I can copy everything you ever built on React, down to the interface. It doesn't matter how much I copy because you cannot sue me without losing license to the very thing you used to build it, and thereby not having right to build it in the first place. Read the agreement in full, till point (iii). > (iii) against any party relating to the Software.

chrisco255 9y ago
No you do not lose the copyright license to use React in your code base. It is BSD. You only lose patent grants in the event you sue Facebook. In the event you sue Facebook, you're going to have to comb through your entire product code base and implementations for possible infringement against their portfolio of thousands of patents because you can bet your ass their legal team is going to come after you in retaliation. That is the nature of patent wars.
danmaz74 9y ago
> I can copy everything you ever built on React, down to the interface Downvoted for FUD. That license is about patents, not copyright.

mtviewdave 9y ago

> Does anyone seriously doubt FB's commitment to RN? When they themselves dogfood it? After the shutdown of Parse, I don't see how anyone could avoid having doubt about Facebook's commitment to React Native, or to anything else outside of their core business.

oakesm9 9y ago
Parse was never used internally at Facebook I don't think. React Native is used for major parts of the main app and in parts of Instagram. I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison.
- askafriend 9y ago
  What major parts of the main Facebook app is React Native used for? Serious question. In the Instagram app, really only the settings screens and the bookmarks feature are written in RN - 2 of the simplest features in the entire app.
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    FB app uses it for esoteric views. Most portions of the app is rendered using Component Kit.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Not true, see link: https://engineering.instagram.com/react-native-at-instagram-dd828a9a90c7 https://engineering.instagram.com/react-native-at-instagram-... Push Notifications, Edit Profile, Photos Of view, Post Promote, Comment Moderation, Lead Gen Ads, SMS Captcha...and that was in February. They are ramping up their usage all the time.
    - askafriend 9y ago
      I think these examples only strengthen my larger point right? I want to see examples of React Native usage in the feed or the main profile architecture. Something critical.

dboreham 9y ago

>Is anyone here planning on suing FACEBOOK? Who amongst us has the team of lawyers to undergo that? This is for 99.999% of people not a legitimate concern. I don't think it is wise to think about this in these narrow terms. Consider the following scenario: Avoidance of these problematic license terms becomes "a thing" in the industry that moves and shakers, but not the likes of us, are worried about. You might have aspirations to sell your company to BigCo, or get investment from VCs. Now we have a concern that use of problematic license code is a poison pill that these investors are not willing to swallow. You aren't considering suing Facebook, but they might think about it. We saw exactly this with GLP'ed code in the past (I have signed a couple of deals where I had to pledge on a stack of bibles that we did not have any GPL code in our tree).

chrisco255 9y ago
If they want to go to patent war with Facebook, they're going to have to answer to Facebook's patent portfolio counterclaims, whether they own companies which use React or not. Facebook owns thousands of patents they have bought over the years. Your company or startup should focus on building a great product and attracting users.
- leereeves 9y ago
  What happens if you use RN and one of your "corporate affiliates" sues Facebook?
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    Or happen to own a few shares in a BigCorp that decides to sue Facebook over any patent?
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    The use of RN doesn't necessarily mean you are violating Facebook's patents, whatever they may be. RN is still published with a BSD license. One of your corporate affiliates better know they're starting a patent war and their code base will be analyzed for patent infringement counterclaims by Facebook's attorneys.

RyanShook 9y ago

Are there any examples of Facebook actually using React Native in a crucial way? All I've seen are parts of their native apps that could be replaced relatively easily. I don't think the "Facebook won't kill React Native because they use it" argument holds as much weight as we'd like to believe.

yladiz 9y ago
Isn't the Facebook mobile app made with React Native?
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  No. I've seen this written many many times, but where is the proof? The Facebook app has 230MB of native binary in there on iOS. It uses very little RN.
  - yladiz 9y ago
    I just looked it up. They don't use it for the entire app, but they do use it for specific parts [1]. Since this was written over a year ago I wouldn't be surprised if more was converted. 1: https://code.facebook.com/posts/895897210527114/dive-into-react-native-performance/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/895897210527114/dive-into-re...
    - LeoNatan25 9y ago
      As I said, they use it for some of the most esoteric screens. That's hardly "using" it. I have it on good authority that some portions of FB (such as Messenger) flat-out refuse to use it. It doesn't not instill confidence.
      - yladiz 9y ago
        Esoteric might not be the right word, but I see your point. Without hearing from Facebook first hand, though, I don't want to discredit their internal use of React Native, especially since it is verifiably in products that they use, e.g. Facebook and Instagram mobile apps.

cookiecaper 9y ago

>2. Patents - Is anyone here planning on suing FACEBOOK? Who amongst us has the team of lawyers to undergo that? This is for 99.999% of people not a legitimate concern. This is an RMS concern. First, "RMS concerns" dismissed as silly and fantastic by "practical people" have been mostly proven totally valid. His dystopian essay "The Right to Read" [0] only becomes more relevant every year. I've had to check my Amazon account 3-4 times to see if the book a friend and I were discussing supported "borrowing" it out for a limited time. Each time I've checked, it hasn't. Circumventing Amazon's controls puts my Amazon account at risk, which is hooked to my life in a lot of significant ways (AWS anyone?). RMS may lack social graces but he is not a dummy. If anything, calling something an "RMS concern" should only call extra attention to its importance, by indicating that there's likely an understated risk that will go unrecognized by others for years. ------- Second, you never know when you'll be in the 0.001%, and that's not a position you want to find yourself in if you are. Facebook is concerned about maintaining its position as the dominant social platform. When you're on a meteoric tear, they're going to bring suit against you whether it's justified or not just to try to starve you out and get you to fold, and ideally to find some reason why an injunction should be issued forbidding your site's continued operation. This license could certainly aid in that. Things don't have to be very common to be unacceptably risky. Most unacceptable risks are in fact quite rare; you can go years riding in a car without a seatbelt or riding a motorbike without a helmet and be no worse for the wear. The problem is that one time, years down the road, when it does matter. When failing to do that little thing will result in permanent, massive loss and/or damage. Maybe it won't happen to you, but it's so easy not to take the risk, that it's stupid to ever do so. If you're building a product that you hope succeeds, it's stupid to use React or other software that contains a legal poison pill like this. It may not matter most of the time, but when it does matter, it really matters. The comparative cost of using Mithril or Preact or Vue is much, much more attractive than the cost of engaging in a multi-million dollar legal controversy with one of the world's most important companies, on one of the rare occasions when it really does matter. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

dave7 9y ago

I raised an eyebrow at Windows Phone being given 20% share on the "Portability" scale. And later again with 30% for MacOS. But really, those charts at the end say it all for this particular developer - if he feels only 60% "Productivity" using React Native compared to 90% on competing platforms, his choice is obvious. I imagine for many developers the opposite (or even more so) is the case.

LeoNatan25 9y ago
By your "developers", you mean JavaScript developers that only know JavaScript and are not willing to learn anything else? I am not familiar with many "native" developers who are more productive in RN.
- crispinb 9y ago
  I'm a native iOS & Android developer, but treat native codebases as specialities now I've learned React Native. The latter is far more productive for me. If I were only building one codebase, then the differences would be marginal (perhaps Android/kotlin would be marginally faster to build). But for an iOS & Android app, there's no comparison: pure native in this case is overhead I could rarely afford.
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I'm a native iOS developer, and I'm far more productive with React Native. I can't imagine how anyone wouldn't be, compared to building native iOS and Android apps in parallel. You also don't get very far with React Native if you only know JavaScript. I've had to write a lot of Objective C and Java for native modules, and I picked up C# to integrate libraries for Windows Phone.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    My experience exactly. There's an odd sneer often thrown about re 'knowing javascript'. From what I've seen of this region of the open-source javascript world (react, redux etc), much of it is at least as good and thoughtful code as I typically find in the native iOS and Android world.

Lazare 9y ago

> This is an RMS concern. Stallman is on record as saying he's fine with the patent clause. :)

danmaz74 9y ago
Maybe because he's against software patents in the first place? ;)

dwhitney 9y ago

Yes. Dear God. It's just silly. The worst part of the whole thing is how un-silly it looks. The author must have spent at least a week (probably more) putting this together. I don't envy his manager. One of the toughest problems a manager has to deal with is an incredibly passionate engineer who is clearly wrong. How do you talk this guy down? Tough job.

brockers 9y ago
Great point! This comment provided more incite that the whole of the article.
chii 9y ago
if this engineer is as rational as he believes himself to be, then using rational arguments about why the risks are less than the gains is the best way to convince him.
a_c 9y ago
The post seems to be from 2016 https://github.com/arielelkin/arielelkin.github.io/commits/master/articles/why-im-not-a-react-native-developer.html https://github.com/arielelkin/arielelkin.github.io/commits/m...

avodonosov 9y ago

Where do people get time to write posts of that length?

brynjolf 9y ago

What should I do if I think you are spreading FUD?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

user5994461 9y ago

1. The world is full of framework-of-the-day made by Google, Facebook or Microsoft that was marketed as the next big thing of the century backed by unlimited commitment, and ended up abandoned without notice a couple of years later. 2. Not everyone is a small company with nothing to lose.

oceanswave 9y ago
Oddly enough, Microsoft doesn't have its own client side ui framework, they build typescript and some other component stacks but leverage other UI frameworks in their products. React seems big in their office division - with outlook.com, office web and sharepoint using a lot of react - but pitch angular seemingly everywhere else.

wdb 9y ago

Regarding (2) my team might not have plans to sue Facebook but one of other 40.000 colleagues of mine might in the future. Maybe they want to sue FB because they use some of the company's VR patents through Oculus. Now I have to admit I don't know if their patents clause has any validity when we don't do business in the US, though.

ungzd 9y ago

> 1. Uncertain Roadmap Qt is still widely used despite lots of insane company merges (Trolltech -> Nokia -> Microsoft -> Digia -> Qt company). Probably because it's opensource. > 2. Patents If Facebook has patent for dynamic rebuilding of GUI from xml-like tree, then it may sue you for using XUL, XAML or your own code that does the same. > 3. Javascript Complains about type safety is laughable when compared to building apps directly in Java and Objective C. > 5. Alternatives > Appcelerator Oh lol