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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 oth

by 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.

pluma 9y ago
> I am not a lawyer, and my article simply analyses the compromises a company makes when adopting React No, your article is literally FUD. "I don't know what their goals are with this, so let's assume the worst". What could that be? Nobody knows, so let's assume it's really bad and you don't want it. F, U and D. > I analysed 75+ projects from 35 companies (link: [1]), and none uses this license model. What's going on? You're feigning surprise that no other company than Facebook provides a Facebook Open Source Patent Grant along with their BSD-licensed projects? The only major licenses that contain patent grants are Apache 2 and GPL. As I'm not going to touch the GPL debate with a ten foot pole, that only leaves Apache 2 or no patent grant whatsoever. Turns out most projects just don't bother with patent grants. There are good arguments for Apache 2. BSD+Patents seems to be a good compromise if you want a patent grant, but not one as unconditional as Apache's. This is not nefarious. This is literally more than the nothing 99.999% of non-GPL, non-Apache projects give you. The only thing the PATENTS file does is remove the Heisenberg-esque "maybe a court finds this license implies some kind of patent grant or not" limbo the BSD would otherwise put the project in and replace it with a fixed set of legal certainties you can give your informed consent to or not. > As I argue in my article, this kind of license may hurt the Open Source industry, more than it will benefit it. I thought the point of your article was that startups shouldn't use it if they want to be acquired, oh wait, that's just the clickbait title to sell your opinion on. Your entire "it's bad for OSS" argument boils down to a slippery slope of chilling effects. This is entirely conjecture. By your logic Microsoft would never have published ReactXP and React Native Windows. Google, Twitter, Amazon are actively using React in their products. Your argument falls flat if you even bother looking at the reality. You defend your article by saying you don't want to be involved in flamewars because you're not a frontend developer. You're using intentionally provocative language to make a point about something you admittedly have no stake in. Your article is trying to argue about open source purity but abuses a clickbait premise to garner attention in places like HN. > So just stay away of problematic stuff. Again, this shows you don't understand patents. ALL software is "problematic stuff". BSD+Patents, like Apache2 or GPL, provides certainty about a subset of patents. All other licenses provide only a vague sense of "probably the author won't sue me because that kind of fishing seems obviously unethical". If you want to write an article about why React should be using Apache 2, write that fucking article. Don't try to cover it in startup-relevant buzzwords. > 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 Yes, you're an ASF contributor. Maybe you should lead with that instead of pretending you're impartial. The world would be a better place if everyone used Apache 2. But what does that have to do with startup valuation? Stop spreading FUD. > 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? Let me repeat what I just said: you don't understand patents. React works because it's open source. If React were closed source, it would be about as relevant as Sencha Ext. Not very. Try forking Preact/Inferno with a $99 "I bite any patent lawsuits levelled against you over this" license and see what happens. People don't care about patents. > Would he have used LAMP if it entailed relinquishing any rights to initiate patent litigation? Probably yes? He created Facebook as a one-off stupid thing in college. He might have migrated to something else afterwards. He might have open sourced that. Who knows? Who cares? Again, none of this seems relevant to the headline: React supposedly being bad for startups because it hampers acquisition. You address this in a single section and the entire argument is a single pie-in-the-sky fictional scenario. None of your "empirical" claims back this argument up. > React fan Rich, coming from an ASF fan. Based on your logic I should assume you don't like BSD+Patents because it's incompatible with the ASF's purity requirements. If you spent more time internet stalking me you would have noticed most of my work goes to Apache 2 licensed projects, not React. But that would not make a very good _ad hominem_. I would love it if React switched to Apache 2. I would also love to see a lot of MIT/BSD projects switch to Apache 2. If it doesn't happen, I'm not losing sleep over it and neither should you.

by raulk 9y ago

pluma 9y ago

> I am not a lawyer, and my article simply analyses the compromises a company makes when adopting React No, your article is literally FUD. "I don't know what their goals are with this, so let's assume the worst". What could that be? Nobody knows, so let's assume it's really bad and you don't want it. F, U and D. > I analysed 75+ projects from 35 companies (link: [1]), and none uses this license model. What's going on? You're feigning surprise that no other company than Facebook provides a Facebook Open Source Patent Grant along with their BSD-licensed projects? The only major licenses that contain patent grants are Apache 2 and GPL. As I'm not going to touch the GPL debate with a ten foot pole, that only leaves Apache 2 or no patent grant whatsoever. Turns out most projects just don't bother with patent grants. There are good arguments for Apache 2. BSD+Patents seems to be a good compromise if you want a patent grant, but not one as unconditional as Apache's. This is not nefarious. This is literally more than the nothing 99.999% of non-GPL, non-Apache projects give you. The only thing the PATENTS file does is remove the Heisenberg-esque "maybe a court finds this license implies some kind of patent grant or not" limbo the BSD would otherwise put the project in and replace it with a fixed set of legal certainties you can give your informed consent to or not. > As I argue in my article, this kind of license may hurt the Open Source industry, more than it will benefit it. I thought the point of your article was that startups shouldn't use it if they want to be acquired, oh wait, that's just the clickbait title to sell your opinion on. Your entire "it's bad for OSS" argument boils down to a slippery slope of chilling effects. This is entirely conjecture. By your logic Microsoft would never have published ReactXP and React Native Windows. Google, Twitter, Amazon are actively using React in their products. Your argument falls flat if you even bother looking at the reality. You defend your article by saying you don't want to be involved in flamewars because you're not a frontend developer. You're using intentionally provocative language to make a point about something you admittedly have no stake in. Your article is trying to argue about open source purity but abuses a clickbait premise to garner attention in places like HN. > So just stay away of problematic stuff. Again, this shows you don't understand patents. ALL software is "problematic stuff". BSD+Patents, like Apache2 or GPL, provides certainty about a subset of patents. All other licenses provide only a vague sense of "probably the author won't sue me because that kind of fishing seems obviously unethical". If you want to write an article about why React should be using Apache 2, write that fucking article. Don't try to cover it in startup-relevant buzzwords. > 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 Yes, you're an ASF contributor. Maybe you should lead with that instead of pretending you're impartial. The world would be a better place if everyone used Apache 2. But what does that have to do with startup valuation? Stop spreading FUD. > 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? Let me repeat what I just said: you don't understand patents. React works because it's open source. If React were closed source, it would be about as relevant as Sencha Ext. Not very. Try forking Preact/Inferno with a $99 "I bite any patent lawsuits levelled against you over this" license and see what happens. People don't care about patents. > Would he have used LAMP if it entailed relinquishing any rights to initiate patent litigation? Probably yes? He created Facebook as a one-off stupid thing in college. He might have migrated to something else afterwards. He might have open sourced that. Who knows? Who cares? Again, none of this seems relevant to the headline: React supposedly being bad for startups because it hampers acquisition. You address this in a single section and the entire argument is a single pie-in-the-sky fictional scenario. None of your "empirical" claims back this argument up. > React fan Rich, coming from an ASF fan. Based on your logic I should assume you don't like BSD+Patents because it's incompatible with the ASF's purity requirements. If you spent more time internet stalking me you would have noticed most of my work goes to Apache 2 licensed projects, not React. But that would not make a very good _ad hominem_. I would love it if React switched to Apache 2. I would also love to see a lot of MIT/BSD projects switch to Apache 2. If it doesn't happen, I'm not losing sleep over it and neither should you.