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It's worth noting this "you can't sue us for violating your patents if you use our non-free open source software" is working as designed. Facebook claims that

by cbhl 9y ago

It's worth noting this "you can't sue us for violating your patents if you use our non-free open source software" is working as designed. Facebook claims that if every company adopted a React-like license, that software patents as we know it would basically die. It's worth noting that both Google and Facebook's patent lawyers are generally of the opinion that software patents are net bad, but differ in their opinions of how to express that intent without exposing their companies to additional risk from patent trolls. If you want to be acquired, then this is the opposite of what you want. You file patents for every part of the product you can; you audit your dependencies to avoid copyleft (AGPL and GPL) and React-like licenses, so your software can be folded into a 100% closed source product or shut down or whatever your acquirer wants. If you run a start-up, and you're worried about the React license, you should be speaking to your own legal counsel about the best way forward.

oh_sigh 9y ago
This would have no effect on NPEs, which are the most pernicious types of patent trolls as I see it today.
- cbhl 9y ago
  Right. The way of dealing with NPEs in the short term is to have patents (encourage employees to file for patents, and acquire companies with patents before NPEs do). My understanding is that Facebook's long term vision is that no productive entity can assert its software patent rights, which should then make it politically viable to lobby for laws to be changed to invalidate all software patents altogether.
danmaz74 9y ago
This seems to be the case: the wording is pretty obscure and IANAL, but the risk if you use React and sue Facebook for patent infringement should only be that they can counter-sue you for any patents they may hold that apply to React. And be careful: if Facebook has any patents related to React, they could very well cover also the React alternatives: I seriously doubt that eg the author of Vue.js researched if they were violating and FB React-related patents. Edit: here the link to the patent grant https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS > A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone. This should mean that the patent grant only covers you from being sued for any patents covering React technology, and that is the only protection you lose if you sue Facebook.
raulk 9y ago
If Facebook's approach is so great, by introducing a legal provision in the OSS license, how come it has not been adopted by any other company except for Palantir, despite being introduced in 2014? I analysed 75+ OSS projects from 35 companies, and Facebook is practically alone. https://medium.com/@raulk/list-of-companies-and-popular-projects-by-the-open-source-licenses-they-use-35a53eaf1c80 https://medium.com/@raulk/list-of-companies-and-popular-proj...
- web007 9y ago
  I commented elsewhere on this, but how about CDDL? IANAL but it seems to do the same thing, patent poison pill in the event of suit.
  - raulk 9y ago
    CDDL includes a "weak patent retaliation" clause [1], meaning you only lose the grant if you initiate a patent infringement claim within the context of the project, i.e. saying that the project you have adopted infringes a patent of yours. And even if you do, the revocation takes effect in 60 days, which is pretty friendly IMHO. [1] http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CDDL_and_patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CDDL_and_patents
ngsayjoe 9y ago
As a small startup, I absolutely love Facebook's React patent licensing. It gives me the advantage to use React (Native) while my bigger VC-funded competitors can't. It is like the opposite of economy of scale, haha. (PS: i have no plan to be acquired or raise a VC round or file any patent)
- ktta 9y ago
  If you read the article again, you will notice the point about how large communities don't form with these licenses. Open source software shouldn't have any restrictions on who can use them and who can't. While this license don't specifically exclude a class of people explicitly, even you agree that big companies can't use these projects. So these projects effectively exclude hundreds of thousands of software developers (who work in >small orgs) from using this project and therefore contribute to it. This greatly hurts the project itself, while projects no using this kind of license won't have a problem.
  - nojvek 9y ago
    Your bigger VC competitors probably used Preact, inferno or other vdom libraries so it's really not a great competitive edge. Except it says that you're not serious about your startup's long term future.
    - ktta 9y ago
      I'm arguing that there will be no competitive edge. React got where it is today with the help of lots of developers. If the current license problems came to light before, React would be an inferior project compared to others because the others will have more development. So the ecosystem around other popular project (VueJS?) would be bigger and more robust (because of the number of people providing feedback and filing bugs)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rvdmei 9y ago
The patents clause does not restrict to software pattents, it applies to any patent. If I had any "normal" patents, I would stay far away from any open source project with this patent license (also I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice). I would never allow Facebook (or any company for that matter) to limit my legal rights. I understand that they need to protect themselves, but not at the cost of the damage that they are doing to the open source community.

by cbhl 9y ago

oh_sigh 9y ago

This would have no effect on NPEs, which are the most pernicious types of patent trolls as I see it today.

cbhl 9y ago
Right. The way of dealing with NPEs in the short term is to have patents (encourage employees to file for patents, and acquire companies with patents before NPEs do). My understanding is that Facebook's long term vision is that no productive entity can assert its software patent rights, which should then make it politically viable to lobby for laws to be changed to invalidate all software patents altogether.

danmaz74 9y ago

This seems to be the case: the wording is pretty obscure and IANAL, but the risk if you use React and sue Facebook for patent infringement should only be that they can counter-sue you for any patents they may hold that apply to React. And be careful: if Facebook has any patents related to React, they could very well cover also the React alternatives: I seriously doubt that eg the author of Vue.js researched if they were violating and FB React-related patents. Edit: here the link to the patent grant https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS > A "Necessary Claim" is a claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone. This should mean that the patent grant only covers you from being sued for any patents covering React technology, and that is the only protection you lose if you sue Facebook.

raulk 9y ago

If Facebook's approach is so great, by introducing a legal provision in the OSS license, how come it has not been adopted by any other company except for Palantir, despite being introduced in 2014? I analysed 75+ OSS projects from 35 companies, and Facebook is practically alone. https://medium.com/@raulk/list-of-companies-and-popular-projects-by-the-open-source-licenses-they-use-35a53eaf1c80 https://medium.com/@raulk/list-of-companies-and-popular-proj...

web007 9y ago
I commented elsewhere on this, but how about CDDL? IANAL but it seems to do the same thing, patent poison pill in the event of suit.
- raulk 9y ago
  CDDL includes a "weak patent retaliation" clause [1], meaning you only lose the grant if you initiate a patent infringement claim within the context of the project, i.e. saying that the project you have adopted infringes a patent of yours. And even if you do, the revocation takes effect in 60 days, which is pretty friendly IMHO. [1] http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CDDL_and_patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/CDDL_and_patents

ngsayjoe 9y ago

As a small startup, I absolutely love Facebook's React patent licensing. It gives me the advantage to use React (Native) while my bigger VC-funded competitors can't. It is like the opposite of economy of scale, haha. (PS: i have no plan to be acquired or raise a VC round or file any patent)

ktta 9y ago
If you read the article again, you will notice the point about how large communities don't form with these licenses. Open source software shouldn't have any restrictions on who can use them and who can't. While this license don't specifically exclude a class of people explicitly, even you agree that big companies can't use these projects. So these projects effectively exclude hundreds of thousands of software developers (who work in >small orgs) from using this project and therefore contribute to it. This greatly hurts the project itself, while projects no using this kind of license won't have a problem.
- nojvek 9y ago
  Your bigger VC competitors probably used Preact, inferno or other vdom libraries so it's really not a great competitive edge. Except it says that you're not serious about your startup's long term future.
  - ktta 9y ago
    I'm arguing that there will be no competitive edge. React got where it is today with the help of lots of developers. If the current license problems came to light before, React would be an inferior project compared to others because the others will have more development. So the ecosystem around other popular project (VueJS?) would be bigger and more robust (because of the number of people providing feedback and filing bugs)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rvdmei 9y ago

The patents clause does not restrict to software pattents, it applies to any patent. If I had any "normal" patents, I would stay far away from any open source project with this patent license (also I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice). I would never allow Facebook (or any company for that matter) to limit my legal rights. I understand that they need to protect themselves, but not at the cost of the damage that they are doing to the open source community.