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What is the issue with a free patent grant (which is revoked under certain conditions)? Atom itself is licensed under MIT and doesn't give you a patent grant.

What is the issue with a free patent grant (which is revoked under certain conditions)? Atom itself is licensed under MIT and doesn't give you a patent grant. EDIT: I understand that it would be best to get a free patent grant, but most open-source projects have no patent grant at all. Why are we not complaining that Microsoft might hold patents for VSCode that they suddenly will start suing companies over?

ericflo 9y ago
There exist good licenses that extend a patent grant in a reasonable manner. Facebook went off and wrote their own version that is asymmetrical in their favor. Also, lawyers seem to agree that most OSS that don't include a patent grant are giving an implicit patent grant, and this explicit grant is worse for the developer than the implicit one (while being better for Facebook.)
- judofyr 9y ago
  Some lawyers argue that BSD/MIT includes an implicit patent grant, but this has never been tested in court. Facebook's lawyers obviously don't think it's clear that BSD includes an implicit patent grant, which is why they have an additional license. I don't see how "we hope that a judge would interpret the licence as an implied patent grant" is better than an actual patent grant (with some constraints). Also, IANAL, but I never understood why the revocation of the explicit patent grant would cancel out the implied patent grant. If your argument is that "the BSD licence text implies a patent grant", shouldn't that be true regardless of any additional licenses?
  - ericflo 9y ago
    It's not about whether or not the implicit grant exists, it's that the implicit grant doesn't go far enough for Facebook's liking. What you refer to as "some constraints" is an abdication of your ability to defend your company against Facebook infringements for as long as you use software that includes this horrible clause.
neilparikh 9y ago
IANAL, but I've read that when there's no explicit patent grant written, an implicit patent grant can be inferred, since MIT says you have the ability to use it (which would require a patent grant if covered by patents). If that is the case, no (explicit) patent grant would be better than this grant.

ericflo 9y ago

There exist good licenses that extend a patent grant in a reasonable manner. Facebook went off and wrote their own version that is asymmetrical in their favor. Also, lawyers seem to agree that most OSS that don't include a patent grant are giving an implicit patent grant, and this explicit grant is worse for the developer than the implicit one (while being better for Facebook.)

judofyr 9y ago
Some lawyers argue that BSD/MIT includes an implicit patent grant, but this has never been tested in court. Facebook's lawyers obviously don't think it's clear that BSD includes an implicit patent grant, which is why they have an additional license. I don't see how "we hope that a judge would interpret the licence as an implied patent grant" is better than an actual patent grant (with some constraints). Also, IANAL, but I never understood why the revocation of the explicit patent grant would cancel out the implied patent grant. If your argument is that "the BSD licence text implies a patent grant", shouldn't that be true regardless of any additional licenses?
- ericflo 9y ago
  It's not about whether or not the implicit grant exists, it's that the implicit grant doesn't go far enough for Facebook's liking. What you refer to as "some constraints" is an abdication of your ability to defend your company against Facebook infringements for as long as you use software that includes this horrible clause.

neilparikh 9y ago

IANAL, but I've read that when there's no explicit patent grant written, an implicit patent grant can be inferred, since MIT says you have the ability to use it (which would require a patent grant if covered by patents). If that is the case, no (explicit) patent grant would be better than this grant.