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Lawyers. They sure are spoiling the success for the React folks. You can bet Facebook has alot of them and you can bet their political influence is strong wit

Lawyers. They sure are spoiling the success for the React folks. You can bet Facebook has alot of them and you can bet their political influence is strong with the upper management. Lawyer: "this thing, this point in the contract, it's VERY VERY important". The more lawyers you get in the room, the more beard pulling, wailing and hand wringing there would be about the dire, dire consequences of taking this stupid clause out. And of course the world would come to an end if no-one listened to lawyers. After I fucked several business deals listening to lawyers say how contracts should be changed, I decided to make my own decisions about what matters and what doesn't in a contract. The real problem for ReactJS is that someone at facebook is listening to the lawyers wring their hands about some possible future that will never happen. facebook should just grow up and tell its lawyers to shut up and go back to doing.... whetever it is they do.

morgante 9y ago
> some possible future that will never happen Facebook has been subject to numerous patent litigations and is very likely to be involved in future patent litigations. Maintaining a defensive patent portfolio is an important part of preparing for such litigations, so Facebook's lawyers certainly aren't idly protecting their patents.
- hoodoof 9y ago
  Yep, exactly what the fb lawyers are saying. These are the sorts of important sounding things that the lawyers are saying and frightening everyone into thinking just how incredibly important this issue is, how much is at stake.
  - zodiac 9y ago
    Well then, do you think they're wrong about it? If so why? How would you address the point about past litigation (e.g. by Yahoo)?
- ballenf 9y ago
  But that's irrelevant here. FB is likely getting sued by patent holding companies who aren't reliant on or using React. So the patent clause doesn't really get FB anything against patent trolls. It does get them leverage against legitimate patent holders. There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal. I'm somewhat skeptical of these reports, but if there is direct revenue to FB from this clause it would be the Occam's Razor explanation for their intransigence.
  - morgante 9y ago
    The patent clause isn't designed to give Facebook leverage. It's designed to grant patents unless you sue them. Even though patent trolls don't use React, Facebook wants to ensure that they don't grant patent licenses to patent trolls. > There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal. If you can provide any direct evidence of that, I'd be fascinated. I highly suspect it's FUD.
    - Yizahi 9y ago
      But Facebook can infringe on your patents if they know you have a heavy dependency on React. They won't sue, just infringe. And you won't be able to sue them with zero losses, you will lose at minimum React.
      - Sacho 9y ago
        That sounds like a positive, if the end goal is the elimination the abomination of software patents.
        joesb 9y ago
        But I only want to eliminate patents that I don't own....
      - notacoward 9y ago
whipoodle 9y ago
Facebook uses React for their own projects. To them, if more people use it that's probably great and all, but I don't think they are really hurt by people choosing not to use it. They clearly would rather keep their license as it is than change it to win over new React users.

morgante 9y ago

> some possible future that will never happen Facebook has been subject to numerous patent litigations and is very likely to be involved in future patent litigations. Maintaining a defensive patent portfolio is an important part of preparing for such litigations, so Facebook's lawyers certainly aren't idly protecting their patents.

hoodoof 9y ago
Yep, exactly what the fb lawyers are saying. These are the sorts of important sounding things that the lawyers are saying and frightening everyone into thinking just how incredibly important this issue is, how much is at stake.
- zodiac 9y ago
  Well then, do you think they're wrong about it? If so why? How would you address the point about past litigation (e.g. by Yahoo)?
ballenf 9y ago
But that's irrelevant here. FB is likely getting sued by patent holding companies who aren't reliant on or using React. So the patent clause doesn't really get FB anything against patent trolls. It does get them leverage against legitimate patent holders. There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal. I'm somewhat skeptical of these reports, but if there is direct revenue to FB from this clause it would be the Occam's Razor explanation for their intransigence.
- morgante 9y ago
  The patent clause isn't designed to give Facebook leverage. It's designed to grant patents unless you sue them. Even though patent trolls don't use React, Facebook wants to ensure that they don't grant patent licenses to patent trolls. > There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal. If you can provide any direct evidence of that, I'd be fascinated. I highly suspect it's FUD.
  - Yizahi 9y ago
    But Facebook can infringe on your patents if they know you have a heavy dependency on React. They won't sue, just infringe. And you won't be able to sue them with zero losses, you will lose at minimum React.
    - Sacho 9y ago
      That sounds like a positive, if the end goal is the elimination the abomination of software patents.
      - joesb 9y ago
        But I only want to eliminate patents that I don't own....
    - notacoward 9y ago

whipoodle 9y ago

Facebook uses React for their own projects. To them, if more people use it that's probably great and all, but I don't think they are really hurt by people choosing not to use it. They clearly would rather keep their license as it is than change it to win over new React users.