29 ms·

Nerds shouldn't write opinion pieces about subject domains they don't understand. Seriously, stop this. Sometimes you just need to admit you have no idea what

• emilfihlman 9y ago
  _You_ should stop, immediately. Attempting to silence an issue because people are not experts on the issue is beyond immoral. Please reflect on how you are hurting everyone, not helping.
  • pluma 9y ago
    There isn't an issue. The issue is software patents. What's hurting people is self-proclaimed experts writing authoritative blog posts about what technologies people should chose and presenting it as if it were legal advice. This entire drama is a 100% repeat of what pops up on almost a monthly basis because some random developer finds out about Facebook's open source patent grant and decides he has an opinion without even understanding the basic underlying concepts. There are legitimate issues worth discussing, especially around the notion of open source purism (i.e. whether React should migrate to the Apache license to make it more compatible). But instead of having these discussions we get ridiculous unfounded opinion pieces by yet another "dude with an opinion" who didn't even bother validating his basic premises.
  • angli 9y ago
    "Beyond immoral" seems to me somewhere between excessive and totally wrongheaded. Bad advice has consequences and bad legal advice often doubly so. The law is nuanced, convoluted and often unintuitive. People really are better off going to an expert!
  • epicide 9y ago
    First off, the commenter doesn't have the ability to silence anybody (presumably). Regardless, spreading misinformation or at least doubtful information is only going to hurt a cause. Blindly lashing out at things you don't truly understand is foolish. Encouraging others to do so is dangerous. There are several issues with the article itself, but I think one of the most damning actually comes from the updates/notes at the top. Namely, that the author is "neutral and unbiased". Nobody is completely without bias. Especially if you feel so strongly as to write an article.
• sametmax 9y ago
  Nerds will stop talking about things they don't know the day where: - other people will stop saying bullshits about computing; - nerds will stop learning new things by trials and error. None of those will ever happen, so make peace with the fact it will happen more and more.
  • pluma 9y ago
    I would be more charitable if it were clearer the author even read the patent grant to begin with, or understood the basic principles of what software patents even are. The reason I'm saying "nerd" is that it's clear he has some expert knowledge about some things but apparently no grasp of the fact that this does not mean he has expert knowledge about all things. Actual lawyers have come out on the patent grant and how it's basically harmless and pointless. It doesn't even require an actual lawyer to understand this. It just requires not being ignorant about intellectual property law. The only valid argument against React is open source purism, which is why the Apache Software Foundation has banned it. They're not concerned about people suing people, they're concerned that it doesn't mix well with projects released under a pure Apache license. That argument is valid. Every other argument boils down to "I don't understand the difference between patents and copyright". Even when the author shows a glimpse of self-awareness by saying "maybe Preact isn't safe either" he goes on to recommend other libraries as if they were 100% certified patent free. Saying "I don't understand this, please explain" is okay. Saying "this is my expert opinion on something I don't understand and you should take this as advice" only spreads FUD. Want to know whether you are at risk of being sued over software patents? Here's a simple checklist: 1) Are you using or writing source code? If you answered "yes", congratulations, you're at risk of being sued over software patents.
• alvivi 9y ago
  > Nerds shouldn't write opinion pieces about subject domains they don't understand. Following your words, you should not be even allowed to comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority Seriously, stop this.
  • golergka 9y ago
    Argument "I know X" is different than "I don't know X and neither do you".
    • cdolan 9y ago
      Not sure why this is downvoted?
• Mayzie 9y ago
  > 1) which patents Facebook holds and > 2) which patents are relevant to each framework/library (i.e. React and various its alternatives) Facebook needs to come out and give us these answers. There are two scenarios: 1) They have "secret" patents, and the reason they hoard them is to use them as offense when being sued, forcing the suing party (whether "meritless" or meritful) significant monetary loss to rewrite their software with the goal of killing the suit, or, 2) They do not have any patents pertaining to the technology, and so if this is the case, why is the patents clause even present? Why all this hush-hush and incredible resistance to change? It's dodgy as heck. From Facebook's POV of 1, it's fantastic, but _only to Facebook_ - that's why it's there, it's great strategy. For everybody else? Not so much. Either way, they are being immoral and unethical, especially towards their foundations (free and open source software) and user community and ultimately leads to fragmentation as people try to escape the clause (see Preact, Inferno, et al).
  • KingMob 9y ago
    I disagree with the parent poster, but you're sort of confirming their point. There's no such thing as a "secret" patent. The very definition of a patent is that you publish the details in public, in exchange for a time-limited, exclusive right to it. If you want to try to keep something a trade secret, you don't patent it.
    • Mayzie 9y ago
      I am aware of that. That's why I put it in quotes. So far, nobody has found one that really pertains to React and co. So if that's the case and none exist, then go to (2), otherwise Facebook have one in their arsenal that nobody else is thinking about, and go to (1).
• bflesch 9y ago
  I also think this whole situation is overblown and edge cases are constructed as world-end scenarios.
• tchaffee 9y ago
  Are you a patent attorney?
• felipelemos 9y ago
  Everyone should have the right to write opinions about anything, even you. The only situation that I think that you do not have this right is exactly when your opinion is that others shouldn't have this right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• romanovcode 9y ago
  Take your own advice
• kalefranz 9y ago
  The BSD + Patents license doesn't imply anything about Facebook's own patents. React may not itself have any patents; that's not the point. The patents involved here are those not owned by Facebook. Facebook doesn't need patents on React to revoke your license to use React if you sue Facebook for patent infringement. Edit: I see how my reading was wrong. The LICENSE file is still the same old 3-Clause BSD. The PATENTS file is what's new and different.
  • EdwardMSmith 9y ago
    It is EXACTLY the point, as the only thing that gets revoked is the patent grant - not the software license.
    • zwily 9y ago
      That point is even clarified by the Facebook FAQ on the license, but it still seems to confuse most people.
      • pluma 9y ago
        Most people seem to just read the part in PATENTS where it talks about a "license" being revoked and go "I KNOW THIS" thinking it talks about a copyright license. It's excusable if English is not your native language, but "license" doesn't have to mean "copyright license".
• raulk 9y ago
  Your argument is simply supporting my thesis. 1) I am not a lawyer, and my article simply analyses the compromises a company makes when adopting React (and other OSS projects licensed under the same terms), without going into Patent Law. Some lawyers think that the patent-related legal provisions are not enforceable anyway, but then it begs to ask the question. If they are not enforceable, why is Facebook so adamant about keeping this license model? Surely there's something else behind this, some motivation. 2) Facebook claims their motivation is reducing patent litigation. And they claim that making this model widespread would benefit the entire industry. Let's put that in context. They adopted this license in 2014 and, in the last 3 years, no other company aside from Palantir has followed suit. I analysed 75+ projects from 35 companies (link: [1]), and none uses this license model. What's going on? As I argue in my article, this kind of license may hurt the Open Source industry, more than it will benefit it. 3) No, I do not know (a) what applicable patents FB holds with regards to React, nor (b) those that may be in the works, nor (c) those they intend to apply for. Likely neither do you. And that's the whole point of the article. Most people and startups don't have access to an expert patent lawyer. Even if they did, would it be a good use of resources to engage them to evaluate the adoption of a frontend UI layer? No. So just stay away of problematic stuff. 4) And as a result of the above, my stance is that I prefer to use a stack that grants me any patents unconditionally, or maybe with weak patent retaliation like the ASLv2 license, that's OK, i.e. I sue the holder over patents covering only the work I am using, I lose the patent grant for the work I'm using. Simple and symmetrical 5) Here's some food for thought. Would you rather relinquish your IP assertion rights with this "BSD-3 + strong patent retaliation" model, or would you rather pay $99/dev for a commercial license on React and not give Facebook any control? 6) Facebook exists thanks to Open Source. Zuck implemented it using the LAMP stack back in 2004. Would he have used LAMP if it entailed relinquishing any rights to initiate patent litigation? --- As I said, I am not giving people legal advise, I'm just voicing out my opinion. But I do see a lot of React fans like you (based on your Github [2]) trying to diminish the arguments appealing to lack of authority and what not, without understanding the logic behind my argument. Picking an OSS UI view layer should not require involving your legal advisors, don't you think? [1] 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... [2] https://github.com/pluma https://github.com/pluma EDIT: added point 6.
• JoshMnem 9y ago
  I didn't read the whole article, so my comment is about the PATENTS file and not the article. The situation isn't just about React. The PATENTS file is found in many repos, and it's leaking into the entire open source ecosystem due to dependencies. Those kinds of conditions should not be added to Free software licenses.
  • nojvek 9y ago
    React licence introduces unwanted licence complexity. If I make an OS project that uses React what is my licence?
    • pluma 9y ago
      Your license is still whatever your license is. The PATENTS file is an additional patent grant. The BSD license contains no patent grant, it's just a copyright license. You can even distribute React as part of an Apache2 project. The Apache2 patent grant explicitly only covers relevant patents the contributors hold.
      • JoshMnem 9y ago
        And possibly also a restriction. It appears to say that if Facebook infringes your patents, you can't defend your patents.
• abhineet97 9y ago
  pluma has contributed 2 commits to react: https://github.com/facebook/react/commits?author=pluma https://github.com/facebook/react/commits?author=pluma This isn't highly relevant but it can be a probable cause for bias.
  • pluma 9y ago
    I've also visited a number of React conferences. I've also been writing code since 1995 and participated in web standards discussions during the XForms days landing me in the HTML Acknowledgements: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/acknowledgements.html https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/acknowledgements.html I'm also a contributor to a number of Apache 2 licensed projects. I don't have financial ties to Facebook. In fact I'm opposed to the idea of working at Facebook. I'm not sure what conclusions you want to draw from any of this, but feel free to do so. I'm just annoyed to see this clickbait article on the frontpage of HN after far more knowledgeable people have had far more insightful things to say on the issue. Yes, I want to see React succeed because I think it's honestly a good tool and the maintainers are doing a great job. But the reason I'm so obviously angry about this particular discussion is that it's spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt over what is a total non-issue for any project that doesn't have to adhere as religiously to a single open source license as the Apache Software Foundation does. This discussion lends itself to people who don't even grasp the difference between a patent grant and a copyright license patting each other on the back for agreeing on how horrible Facebook is. I don't like Facebook either, but the only people who should tell you whether you should be using Facebook open source software are your legal department or your lawyer. Deciding against React because you might at some point in the future have a patent you want to use to actively sue Facebook is like deciding against buying a pack of tissues because you might at some point in the future decide to set your house on fire. It's mostly irrelevant and at the point at which it becomes relevant your house is on fire.
• alifa 9y ago
  Totally agree with `Oh, wait, maybe "Facebook holds any software patents on the Virtual DOM or the React APIs" ` Writing articles is a mean to become famous!