14 ms·

GraphQL Patent Infringement Issues

301 points by brodock 9y ago

chris_wot 9y ago
Even the companies who file the patents don't want the patents. It's getting kind of ridiculous now.
- harry8 9y ago
  Even the companies who file the patents claim they don't want the patents.
  - chris_wot 9y ago
    No, they have to do it as a defensive measure. It sucks, but companies like RedHat do it all the time.
    - CamperBob2 9y ago
      They don't have to do any such thing. All they have to do is disclose the invention publicly, and no one else can take it from them.
      - brazzledazzle 9y ago
        I think it's more meant as a mutually assured destruction strategy.
        CamperBob2 9y ago
        Actually evgen makes an interesting counterargument to my point below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291093 Still, the result is an arms race among land-mine manufacturers. Nobody wins but the undertakers and the orthopedic surgeons... or in this case the lawyers.
    - sanxiyn 9y ago
      We really should work on making defensive publication easier and more recognized.
      - wereHamster 9y ago
        Isn't it enough to publish the patent text such that it can be used as prior art to prevent other companies from patenting the same thing, but in that form can't be used to actively go after other companies from using the same technology?
        evgen 9y ago
        Not really. If you publish X I can still patent X + Y and probably catch a lot of people doing a derivative of X. If you patent X then my X + Y patent is much less useful and if I become obnoxious about it you can always threaten to destroy my customer base by enforcing X.
        chris_wot 9y ago
        It also doesn't help if you are the First Inventor To File.
      - brlewis 9y ago
        How about we work on not allowing patents in fields where it's unreasonable to expect the patent office to assess novelty and non-obviousness? Like software?
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Or at least making their duration commensurate to the invention itself, and the speed of evolution of the field. 3 years would be more than enough time for the "inventors" to make money off their software patent.
        jononor 9y ago
        Any or all of these 3 things would help!
    - valarauca1 9y ago
      Software patents can only be used defensively when you are claiming your source code implements a patient. In that light, the owner (or even expiration) does not matter. You can claim to implement an expired patent as a defense of a patent lawsuit. You can claim to implement/steal somebody else's patent (but that is unwise at times). This principle is how RISC-V and J-Core have survived. They pointed to expired patents and saying, "we do that, not your thing." (They really did too) Privately owned patent rights, without rights granted to other entities can only be used offensively. Anyone saying otherwise is wittingly or unwitting supporting the patent system and arguing company line.
      - detaro 9y ago
        Offense is defense. If your competitor has enough patents that they'll find something they can reasonably argue that you infringe on, it's useful to present the same threat to them. Companies that are serious about only using patents for this purpose can contribute them to open licensing schemes. (And in the case of specifications that want to be standards, full patent grants should absolutely be included. You want people to use their stuff, make it safe for them to do so)
        valarauca1 9y ago
        >Offense is defense An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        It does, but unfortunately, that's how humans work. We use threats to make cooperation the best choice for all parties, because we can't trust that none of those parties is an asshole.
    - gcp 9y ago
      Yes, but those companies don't use toxic patent licenses like Facebook does. No false equivalence should be made here. Facebook needs and deserves to be called out over it as much as possible.
robocat 9y ago
Links to: “TL;DR Facebook’s GraphQL spec doesn’t grant a patent license. Therefore, for reasons as set forth below, most GraphQL users infringe Facebook’s patents.“ https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-now-owns-you-3182751028c9 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n...
- j_s 9y ago
  As posted elsewhere in this discussion, a request for professional courtesy similar to the more common "NSFW" tag. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15292325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15292325) > fnord123: That post has text of the patents in question. Please warn if you're linking to text of patents so people don't expose themselves to triple damages
wyattk 9y ago
Why does Facebook not use something like an MIT license? I am honestly curious.
- tcheard 9y ago
  The MIT license doesn't change anything in this case, because the MIT license doesn't have a patent grant. This GraphQL situation is different and, arguably, somewhat worse than the ReactJS BSD+Patent license issue. The problem here is the GraphQL specification doesn't have a patent grant (unlike ReactJS, which does, but people don't like the terms of the grant). And Facebook have filed a patent for GraphQL (https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028 https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028) that has some quite broad language. Due to the patent, and the lack of a patent grant, most GraphQL users likely infringe on Facebook's patents. Please read: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-now-owns-you-3182751028c9 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n...
  - ricardobeat 9y ago
    If you publish something under a MIT license very early, can you still apply for a patent after its practically public domain? I'd say no, but IANAL.
    - ensignavenger 9y ago
      Some lawyers argue that if you publish software under an open source license without an explicit patent grant, that their is an implicit grant with it. As far as I know, this has not been tested in court, but it seems reasonable to me, (not as lawyer).
    - jononor 9y ago
      Sure you can apply. And you might very well get it too. They don't have time to check much at the patent office, mostly standarized IP databases (probably not including your code). And if you get it, it becomes the burden of the others to prove the patent invalid. Bad patents are common, and litigation so expensive that they are a real problem to whoever is affected by them.
bcarroll22 9y ago
Serious question. React has been around for a while. Companies like Airbnb and Wix, for example, have been using React for a while. If Facebook were going to leverage this the way people are scared of, wouldn’t there be some example of them using it the way people are scared of? You know, on a company doing something it’s proven that they could make major money on? It’s not like this is a new provision, it’s been around for a while, and they’ve not used it to backhand a single company that I’ve come across (please, correct me if I’m wrong on this). So can’t this be boiled down to a conspiracy theory? There are massively successful, profitable companies who they haven’t tried to leverage these provisions on, so I’m honestly trying to figure out, what’s the basis for this fear?
- chrisco255 9y ago
  So React is damned for including a PATENTS license and GraphQL is damned for not including a PATENTS license? Facebook can't win for losing. Geez, wish they would just re-license under Apache 2.0.
  - tcheard 9y ago
    > So React is damned for including a PATENTS license A patent grant is a good thing, you want a patent grant as a user of OSS. The problem people have with React's patent grant is the one sided terms of the patent grant (and the fear that Facebook could hold you hostage with those terms). > Geez, wish they would just re-license under Apache 2.0. This would be my preference. IMO, for the React issue, even if the issue is a paper tiger (https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revokable-patent-license-why-its-a-paper-25c40c50b562 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...), this puts a massive hit on Facebook's OSS credibility. Even if the fear was irrational, many people are never going to understand that now and many people won't touch any Facebook OSS because of that fear. Facebook would probably solve a lot of that credibility loss by just re-licensing under Apache 2.0.
    - koko775 9y ago
      Unfortunately that logic seems to lead to a strategy of FUD in the direction of a different patent license, which if that approach is validated then leads to being less open doesn't it?
perpetualcrayon 9y ago
My take on all this is Facebook's legal team seems to be sending a message to the open source community that they should come for the ideas, but wait for a truly open source alternative to come out before using those ideas in their own products.
- thewhitetulip 9y ago
  Or probably they are a mixture of old and new ideas and eventually things will streamline?
- ungzd 9y ago
  But if you are using ideas from their software, you are infringing patents too.
  - koolba 9y ago
    Well duh thats the idea. Then they can sue you. More work for FB's legal team too.
  - perpetualcrayon 9y ago
    I'm obviously not condoning patent infringement. The idea is to learn from useful ideas and implement a non-infringing equivalent as an open source project. You can't patent "math", or "computer science", or ideas comparably broad.
    - moocowtruck 9y ago
      you shouldn't be able to patent a query language for a graph either but here we are
- Lazare 9y ago
  That doesn't work for patents...
  - perpetualcrayon 9y ago
DannyBee 9y ago
Specs are a bit weird to try to come up with the right licensing (It was a bit of a pain in the butt to try to get this right for webm, for example). You want to encourage compliance with the spec, and protect people who implement the spec. That is a different type of language that say, apache 2. To be concrete: If you license the reference code as apache2, that would grant patent rights to people if they used reference code, and they'd be SOL otherwise. Licensing the spec as apache2 would do nothing, as it's not software. So if you want something apache2 like, you have to use a grant that tries to talk about granting rights to implementations of the spec, and that, for example, terminates if people sue people for implementing the spec. The first pass i took at this was in https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/ https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/ (but i'm sure there are better approaches now)
- sheetjs 9y ago
  Microsoft tries to do that with the Open Specifications Promise, a covenant not to sue: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecifications/dn646765 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecifications/dn646765
  - bhldr 9y ago
    Pretty sure that that's non-binding, which means it can change as soon as leadership changes.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - sheetjs 9y ago
      Allegedly it is legally binding! Scroll down to the bottom of the page, expand "OSP General" and you'll see a question "Is this OSP legally binding on Microsoft and will it be available in the future to me and to others?". The response is: > Yes, the OSP is legally binding upon Microsoft. The OSP is a unilateral promise from Microsoft and unilateral promises may be enforced against the party making such a promise. Because the OSP states that the promise is irrevocable, it may not be withdrawn by Microsoft. The OSP is, and will be, available to everyone now and in the future for the specifications to which it applies. As stated in the OSP, the only time Microsoft can withdraw its promise against a specific person or company for a specific Covered Specification is if that person or company brings (or voluntarily participates in) a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft regarding a Microsoft implementation of the same Covered Specification. This type of "suspension" clause is common industry practice.
blazespin 9y ago
Oh boy I just love Facebook's kick away the ladder patents.
yuchi 9y ago
Help me on this: Facebook has just removed the PATENTS file from GraphQL repository, and now there are issues for this? And at the same time people are arguing over removing it from React? This is madness…
- worldsayshi 9y ago
  What? They haven't... https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS
  - Flenser 9y ago
    The graphql-js repo is an implementation of GraphQL in JavaScript The graphql repo is the specification for GraphQL. There has never been a PATENTS file in that repo or any mention of patents: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/search?q=patents&type=Commits&utf8=%E2%9C%93 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/search?q=patents&type=Co... See DannyBee's post for why a patent grant for a specification is different from software: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291330
- twinsart 9y ago
  You're probably thinking of RocksDB
a13n 9y ago
Can anyone point me to a single instance where anything bad has actually happened because of Facebook's patent clause in one of their open source libraries?
- kowdermeister 9y ago
  It's a ticking bomb. You don't control what Facebook do or won't do and it's enough for lawyers to freak out. You can't know what would happen if Zuckerberg is replaced (accidents happen) and corporate water-heads take over Facebook.
  - a13n 9y ago
    So that's a no then?
    - kowdermeister 9y ago
      Point me to a thing in the past that guarantees that North Korea won't use its nuclear weapons in the future.
- jeremyjh 9y ago
  Did you read the article? This issue has nothing to do with the patent clause in their libraries. This is a problem with the GraphQL spec being patented. Since there is no grant of GraphQL itself, any library implementing it on the server side that isn't written by Facebook and conveying that grant, is infringing.
- brodock 9y ago
  When in doubt always remember about Oracle vs Google (Java/Android).
- revmoo 9y ago
  Read the article before commenting.
- awj 9y ago
  Can anyone point me to a single instance where North Korea has used a nuclear weapon in combat? No? Why are we worried then...
HelloNurse 9y ago
This GitHub issue is almost three weeks old and without any formal answer. At the very least, Facebook doesn't care about solving the problem, which is almost as bad as having malevolent plans to use these GraphQL patents.
- peteretep 9y ago
  > At the very least, Facebook doesn't > care about solving the problem This attitude isn't in the least bit helpful. It's been escalated to their legal council and the maintainer has said many many times that he's chasing it.
  - HelloNurse 9y ago
    The poor developer answering in the GitHub issue tracker probably cares, but he is a worker bee, not someone with any authority. All he can do is escalate the issue into a brick wall.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dmalik 9y ago
Are there any technologies that are an alternative to GraphQL like Vue is to React?
- k__ 9y ago
  REST/HATEOAS/JSON-HAL, JSON-API, Falcor.
- yasserkaddour 9y ago
  If you are a node developer there is Falcor by Netflix https://netflix.github.io/falcor/ https://netflix.github.io/falcor/
  - dmalik 9y ago
    Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about Falcor. For anyone that's interested I found this comparison: https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/graphql-vs-falcor-4f1e9cbf7504 https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/graphql-vs-falcor-4f1e9cbf75...
- dboreham 9y ago
  If the patents hold up (doubtful, but...) then this doesn't matter because the alternatives could just as well be infringing.
- idbehold 9y ago
  OData
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    OData is particularly interesting because its design has clear overlap with GraphQL, and it's a lot older. This means it could even be brought up as prior art in some patent cases, maybe. There's significant differences, but it means that if someone designs an "OData without the suck" then there's a fair chance Facebook doesn't have much to go on. That said they can still play patent troll of course - patents hardly ever get evaluated on their merits in court AFAIK.
oliwarner 9y ago
As I understand it, this is bad because you could use their code within the copyright license but then be sued for using it without the applicable patent license... Making it open source but far from free. Just out of curiosity though, has this sort of backdoor patent infringement actually been tested in court? IANAL, let alone a bitter twisted IP lawyer, but it seems perfectly reasonable to infer relevant patent licenses from an open source contribution. "Hey here's a free meal, but you better not eat it or we'll sue!" Sticky stuff.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dboreham 9y ago
  Perhaps, but patents can be sold. Imagine a future Facebook sells the patents to BadTrollCo. Now you have two parties : the company that open sourced the thing (hence, perhaps didn't intend to sue people for infringement) and BadTrollCo that wants their pound of flesh.
- carussell 9y ago
  > you could use their code within the copyright license but then be sued for using it without the applicable patent license... Making it open source but far from free This has been the gist of the complaint against software patents for the last decade+. It's why all the latest revisions of Apache, GPL, and MPL include explicit patent grants and termination criteria in their texts. It's why Microsoft included a separate patent promise when they placed .NET Core under MIT. And it's why Facebook themselves has released most of their projects with the now-infamous PATENTS additional grant. > As I understand it, this is bad because Not really. This is bad because GraphQL is a spec. If Facebook released some GraphQL-related software under any modern FOSS license, you'd be able to use it, regardless of any patents covering it. (See above.) The problem with GraphQL being a spec is that if you use some GraphQL-related software that doesn't originate from Facebook, then the licenses on any Facebook software (and thus the patent grants in that license) are irrelevant and you have no patent protection. And now you might begin to see why everyone in OSS who's acting in good faith would be better off with their own Facebook-style PATENTS grant.
yasserkaddour 9y ago
Gitlab put on hold their GraphQL implementation due to the patent. Gitlab Senior Director of Legal Affairs said: "If we were to allow this license, it could lead to potential future conflicts with software licensed under Apache. Also, we could be impairing the future rights of our customers. Essentially, this is not really an open source product based on the implications of the license. While there is no payment of cash, payment is in the form of giving up future rights." [1] [1] https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351#issuecomment-330574513 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351#issuecomment-...
- yomly 9y ago
  Any chance you can unsnippet that quote? In the longterm can the HN team to look at how snippets work on mobile. Reading that on my phone was horrendous...
  - jacoblambda 9y ago
    Reading it on desktop wasn't great either
    - yasserkaddour 9y ago
      Sorry, with Hacker News Enhancement Suite[1] it looked great. [1] https://github.com/etcet/HNES https://github.com/etcet/HNES
      - kevindqc 9y ago
        I just installed this and now carussel's comment is empty, but I can see it in incognito mode. Also the textbox where I'm typing this doesn't even fit and has a scrollbar.. gonna skip this one.. Edit: Oh. Never mind, there seems to be two buttons to expand/collapse?
      - jacoblambda 9y ago
        looks useful but it breaks my stylish dark theme so im going to have to pass on this extension
k__ 9y ago
Are these software patents a problem for EU companies? I mean, we don't have software patents in Germany.
- catwell 9y ago
  It is if you sell software to people outside the EU.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
deckar01 9y ago
> Generic computers performing generic computer functions, without an inventive concept, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The type of information being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. Looking at the elements as a combination does not add anything more than the elements analyzed individually. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim is not patent eligible. > Examiner suggested . . . to advance the prosecution of this application: 1) Add the following limitations in claim 1: ‘a) graphs associated with a social-networking system’ . . . . It sounds to me like the examiner is contradicting their self. They initially state that the type of information being manipulated does not render the idea less abstract, then go on to suggest limiting the information to social networking graphs.
juancampa 9y ago
Seems like a change in the license is on its way: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/pull/363 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/pull/363

301 points by brodock 9y ago

chris_wot 9y ago

Even the companies who file the patents don't want the patents. It's getting kind of ridiculous now.

harry8 9y ago
Even the companies who file the patents claim they don't want the patents.
- chris_wot 9y ago
  No, they have to do it as a defensive measure. It sucks, but companies like RedHat do it all the time.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    They don't have to do any such thing. All they have to do is disclose the invention publicly, and no one else can take it from them.
    - brazzledazzle 9y ago
      I think it's more meant as a mutually assured destruction strategy.
      - CamperBob2 9y ago
        Actually evgen makes an interesting counterargument to my point below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291093 Still, the result is an arms race among land-mine manufacturers. Nobody wins but the undertakers and the orthopedic surgeons... or in this case the lawyers.
  - sanxiyn 9y ago
    We really should work on making defensive publication easier and more recognized.
    - wereHamster 9y ago
      Isn't it enough to publish the patent text such that it can be used as prior art to prevent other companies from patenting the same thing, but in that form can't be used to actively go after other companies from using the same technology?
      - evgen 9y ago
        Not really. If you publish X I can still patent X + Y and probably catch a lot of people doing a derivative of X. If you patent X then my X + Y patent is much less useful and if I become obnoxious about it you can always threaten to destroy my customer base by enforcing X.
        chris_wot 9y ago
        It also doesn't help if you are the First Inventor To File.
    - brlewis 9y ago
      How about we work on not allowing patents in fields where it's unreasonable to expect the patent office to assess novelty and non-obviousness? Like software?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Or at least making their duration commensurate to the invention itself, and the speed of evolution of the field. 3 years would be more than enough time for the "inventors" to make money off their software patent.
        jononor 9y ago
        Any or all of these 3 things would help!
  - valarauca1 9y ago
    Software patents can only be used defensively when you are claiming your source code implements a patient. In that light, the owner (or even expiration) does not matter. You can claim to implement an expired patent as a defense of a patent lawsuit. You can claim to implement/steal somebody else's patent (but that is unwise at times). This principle is how RISC-V and J-Core have survived. They pointed to expired patents and saying, "we do that, not your thing." (They really did too) Privately owned patent rights, without rights granted to other entities can only be used offensively. Anyone saying otherwise is wittingly or unwitting supporting the patent system and arguing company line.
    - detaro 9y ago
      Offense is defense. If your competitor has enough patents that they'll find something they can reasonably argue that you infringe on, it's useful to present the same threat to them. Companies that are serious about only using patents for this purpose can contribute them to open licensing schemes. (And in the case of specifications that want to be standards, full patent grants should absolutely be included. You want people to use their stuff, make it safe for them to do so)
      - valarauca1 9y ago
        >Offense is defense An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        It does, but unfortunately, that's how humans work. We use threats to make cooperation the best choice for all parties, because we can't trust that none of those parties is an asshole.
  - gcp 9y ago
    Yes, but those companies don't use toxic patent licenses like Facebook does. No false equivalence should be made here. Facebook needs and deserves to be called out over it as much as possible.

robocat 9y ago

Links to: “TL;DR Facebook’s GraphQL spec doesn’t grant a patent license. Therefore, for reasons as set forth below, most GraphQL users infringe Facebook’s patents.“ https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-now-owns-you-3182751028c9 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n...

j_s 9y ago
As posted elsewhere in this discussion, a request for professional courtesy similar to the more common "NSFW" tag. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15292325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15292325) > fnord123: That post has text of the patents in question. Please warn if you're linking to text of patents so people don't expose themselves to triple damages

wyattk 9y ago

Why does Facebook not use something like an MIT license? I am honestly curious.

tcheard 9y ago
The MIT license doesn't change anything in this case, because the MIT license doesn't have a patent grant. This GraphQL situation is different and, arguably, somewhat worse than the ReactJS BSD+Patent license issue. The problem here is the GraphQL specification doesn't have a patent grant (unlike ReactJS, which does, but people don't like the terms of the grant). And Facebook have filed a patent for GraphQL (https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028 https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028) that has some quite broad language. Due to the patent, and the lack of a patent grant, most GraphQL users likely infringe on Facebook's patents. Please read: https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-now-owns-you-3182751028c9 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/using-graphql-why-facebook-n...
- ricardobeat 9y ago
  If you publish something under a MIT license very early, can you still apply for a patent after its practically public domain? I'd say no, but IANAL.
  - ensignavenger 9y ago
    Some lawyers argue that if you publish software under an open source license without an explicit patent grant, that their is an implicit grant with it. As far as I know, this has not been tested in court, but it seems reasonable to me, (not as lawyer).
  - jononor 9y ago
    Sure you can apply. And you might very well get it too. They don't have time to check much at the patent office, mostly standarized IP databases (probably not including your code). And if you get it, it becomes the burden of the others to prove the patent invalid. Bad patents are common, and litigation so expensive that they are a real problem to whoever is affected by them.

bcarroll22 9y ago

Serious question. React has been around for a while. Companies like Airbnb and Wix, for example, have been using React for a while. If Facebook were going to leverage this the way people are scared of, wouldn’t there be some example of them using it the way people are scared of? You know, on a company doing something it’s proven that they could make major money on? It’s not like this is a new provision, it’s been around for a while, and they’ve not used it to backhand a single company that I’ve come across (please, correct me if I’m wrong on this). So can’t this be boiled down to a conspiracy theory? There are massively successful, profitable companies who they haven’t tried to leverage these provisions on, so I’m honestly trying to figure out, what’s the basis for this fear?

chrisco255 9y ago
So React is damned for including a PATENTS license and GraphQL is damned for not including a PATENTS license? Facebook can't win for losing. Geez, wish they would just re-license under Apache 2.0.
- tcheard 9y ago
  > So React is damned for including a PATENTS license A patent grant is a good thing, you want a patent grant as a user of OSS. The problem people have with React's patent grant is the one sided terms of the patent grant (and the fear that Facebook could hold you hostage with those terms). > Geez, wish they would just re-license under Apache 2.0. This would be my preference. IMO, for the React issue, even if the issue is a paper tiger (https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revokable-patent-license-why-its-a-paper-25c40c50b562 https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...), this puts a massive hit on Facebook's OSS credibility. Even if the fear was irrational, many people are never going to understand that now and many people won't touch any Facebook OSS because of that fear. Facebook would probably solve a lot of that credibility loss by just re-licensing under Apache 2.0.
  - koko775 9y ago
    Unfortunately that logic seems to lead to a strategy of FUD in the direction of a different patent license, which if that approach is validated then leads to being less open doesn't it?

perpetualcrayon 9y ago

My take on all this is Facebook's legal team seems to be sending a message to the open source community that they should come for the ideas, but wait for a truly open source alternative to come out before using those ideas in their own products.

thewhitetulip 9y ago
Or probably they are a mixture of old and new ideas and eventually things will streamline?
ungzd 9y ago
But if you are using ideas from their software, you are infringing patents too.
- koolba 9y ago
  Well duh thats the idea. Then they can sue you. More work for FB's legal team too.
- perpetualcrayon 9y ago
  I'm obviously not condoning patent infringement. The idea is to learn from useful ideas and implement a non-infringing equivalent as an open source project. You can't patent "math", or "computer science", or ideas comparably broad.
  - moocowtruck 9y ago
    you shouldn't be able to patent a query language for a graph either but here we are
Lazare 9y ago
That doesn't work for patents...
- perpetualcrayon 9y ago

DannyBee 9y ago

Specs are a bit weird to try to come up with the right licensing (It was a bit of a pain in the butt to try to get this right for webm, for example). You want to encourage compliance with the spec, and protect people who implement the spec. That is a different type of language that say, apache 2. To be concrete: If you license the reference code as apache2, that would grant patent rights to people if they used reference code, and they'd be SOL otherwise. Licensing the spec as apache2 would do nothing, as it's not software. So if you want something apache2 like, you have to use a grant that tries to talk about granting rights to implementations of the spec, and that, for example, terminates if people sue people for implementing the spec. The first pass i took at this was in https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/ https://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/ (but i'm sure there are better approaches now)

sheetjs 9y ago
Microsoft tries to do that with the Open Specifications Promise, a covenant not to sue: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecifications/dn646765 https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecifications/dn646765
- bhldr 9y ago
  Pretty sure that that's non-binding, which means it can change as soon as leadership changes.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sheetjs 9y ago
    Allegedly it is legally binding! Scroll down to the bottom of the page, expand "OSP General" and you'll see a question "Is this OSP legally binding on Microsoft and will it be available in the future to me and to others?". The response is: > Yes, the OSP is legally binding upon Microsoft. The OSP is a unilateral promise from Microsoft and unilateral promises may be enforced against the party making such a promise. Because the OSP states that the promise is irrevocable, it may not be withdrawn by Microsoft. The OSP is, and will be, available to everyone now and in the future for the specifications to which it applies. As stated in the OSP, the only time Microsoft can withdraw its promise against a specific person or company for a specific Covered Specification is if that person or company brings (or voluntarily participates in) a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft regarding a Microsoft implementation of the same Covered Specification. This type of "suspension" clause is common industry practice.

blazespin 9y ago

Oh boy I just love Facebook's kick away the ladder patents.

yuchi 9y ago

Help me on this: Facebook has just removed the PATENTS file from GraphQL repository, and now there are issues for this? And at the same time people are arguing over removing it from React? This is madness…

worldsayshi 9y ago
What? They haven't... https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS
- Flenser 9y ago
  The graphql-js repo is an implementation of GraphQL in JavaScript The graphql repo is the specification for GraphQL. There has never been a PATENTS file in that repo or any mention of patents: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/search?q=patents&type=Commits&utf8=%E2%9C%93 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/search?q=patents&type=Co... See DannyBee's post for why a patent grant for a specification is different from software: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15291330
twinsart 9y ago
You're probably thinking of RocksDB

a13n 9y ago

Can anyone point me to a single instance where anything bad has actually happened because of Facebook's patent clause in one of their open source libraries?

kowdermeister 9y ago
It's a ticking bomb. You don't control what Facebook do or won't do and it's enough for lawyers to freak out. You can't know what would happen if Zuckerberg is replaced (accidents happen) and corporate water-heads take over Facebook.
- a13n 9y ago
  So that's a no then?
  - kowdermeister 9y ago
    Point me to a thing in the past that guarantees that North Korea won't use its nuclear weapons in the future.
jeremyjh 9y ago
Did you read the article? This issue has nothing to do with the patent clause in their libraries. This is a problem with the GraphQL spec being patented. Since there is no grant of GraphQL itself, any library implementing it on the server side that isn't written by Facebook and conveying that grant, is infringing.
brodock 9y ago
When in doubt always remember about Oracle vs Google (Java/Android).
revmoo 9y ago
Read the article before commenting.
awj 9y ago
Can anyone point me to a single instance where North Korea has used a nuclear weapon in combat? No? Why are we worried then...

HelloNurse 9y ago

This GitHub issue is almost three weeks old and without any formal answer. At the very least, Facebook doesn't care about solving the problem, which is almost as bad as having malevolent plans to use these GraphQL patents.

peteretep 9y ago
> At the very least, Facebook doesn't > care about solving the problem This attitude isn't in the least bit helpful. It's been escalated to their legal council and the maintainer has said many many times that he's chasing it.
- HelloNurse 9y ago
  The poor developer answering in the GitHub issue tracker probably cares, but he is a worker bee, not someone with any authority. All he can do is escalate the issue into a brick wall.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

dmalik 9y ago

Are there any technologies that are an alternative to GraphQL like Vue is to React?

k__ 9y ago
REST/HATEOAS/JSON-HAL, JSON-API, Falcor.
yasserkaddour 9y ago
If you are a node developer there is Falcor by Netflix https://netflix.github.io/falcor/ https://netflix.github.io/falcor/
- dmalik 9y ago
  Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember hearing about Falcor. For anyone that's interested I found this comparison: https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/graphql-vs-falcor-4f1e9cbf7504 https://dev-blog.apollodata.com/graphql-vs-falcor-4f1e9cbf75...
dboreham 9y ago
If the patents hold up (doubtful, but...) then this doesn't matter because the alternatives could just as well be infringing.
idbehold 9y ago
OData
- skrebbel 9y ago
  OData is particularly interesting because its design has clear overlap with GraphQL, and it's a lot older. This means it could even be brought up as prior art in some patent cases, maybe. There's significant differences, but it means that if someone designs an "OData without the suck" then there's a fair chance Facebook doesn't have much to go on. That said they can still play patent troll of course - patents hardly ever get evaluated on their merits in court AFAIK.

oliwarner 9y ago

As I understand it, this is bad because you could use their code within the copyright license but then be sued for using it without the applicable patent license... Making it open source but far from free. Just out of curiosity though, has this sort of backdoor patent infringement actually been tested in court? IANAL, let alone a bitter twisted IP lawyer, but it seems perfectly reasonable to infer relevant patent licenses from an open source contribution. "Hey here's a free meal, but you better not eat it or we'll sue!" Sticky stuff.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dboreham 9y ago
Perhaps, but patents can be sold. Imagine a future Facebook sells the patents to BadTrollCo. Now you have two parties : the company that open sourced the thing (hence, perhaps didn't intend to sue people for infringement) and BadTrollCo that wants their pound of flesh.
carussell 9y ago
> you could use their code within the copyright license but then be sued for using it without the applicable patent license... Making it open source but far from free This has been the gist of the complaint against software patents for the last decade+. It's why all the latest revisions of Apache, GPL, and MPL include explicit patent grants and termination criteria in their texts. It's why Microsoft included a separate patent promise when they placed .NET Core under MIT. And it's why Facebook themselves has released most of their projects with the now-infamous PATENTS additional grant. > As I understand it, this is bad because Not really. This is bad because GraphQL is a spec. If Facebook released some GraphQL-related software under any modern FOSS license, you'd be able to use it, regardless of any patents covering it. (See above.) The problem with GraphQL being a spec is that if you use some GraphQL-related software that doesn't originate from Facebook, then the licenses on any Facebook software (and thus the patent grants in that license) are irrelevant and you have no patent protection. And now you might begin to see why everyone in OSS who's acting in good faith would be better off with their own Facebook-style PATENTS grant.

yasserkaddour 9y ago

Gitlab put on hold their GraphQL implementation due to the patent. Gitlab Senior Director of Legal Affairs said: "If we were to allow this license, it could lead to potential future conflicts with software licensed under Apache. Also, we could be impairing the future rights of our customers. Essentially, this is not really an open source product based on the implications of the license. While there is no payment of cash, payment is in the form of giving up future rights." [1] [1] https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351#issuecomment-330574513 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351#issuecomment-...

yomly 9y ago
Any chance you can unsnippet that quote? In the longterm can the HN team to look at how snippets work on mobile. Reading that on my phone was horrendous...
- jacoblambda 9y ago
  Reading it on desktop wasn't great either
  - yasserkaddour 9y ago
    Sorry, with Hacker News Enhancement Suite[1] it looked great. [1] https://github.com/etcet/HNES https://github.com/etcet/HNES
    - kevindqc 9y ago
      I just installed this and now carussel's comment is empty, but I can see it in incognito mode. Also the textbox where I'm typing this doesn't even fit and has a scrollbar.. gonna skip this one.. Edit: Oh. Never mind, there seems to be two buttons to expand/collapse?
    - jacoblambda 9y ago
      looks useful but it breaks my stylish dark theme so im going to have to pass on this extension

k__ 9y ago

Are these software patents a problem for EU companies? I mean, we don't have software patents in Germany.

catwell 9y ago
It is if you sell software to people outside the EU.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

deckar01 9y ago

> Generic computers performing generic computer functions, without an inventive concept, do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. The type of information being manipulated does not impose meaningful limitations or render the idea less abstract. Looking at the elements as a combination does not add anything more than the elements analyzed individually. Therefore, the claim does not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. The claim is not patent eligible. > Examiner suggested . . . to advance the prosecution of this application: 1) Add the following limitations in claim 1: ‘a) graphs associated with a social-networking system’ . . . . It sounds to me like the examiner is contradicting their self. They initially state that the type of information being manipulated does not render the idea less abstract, then go on to suggest limiting the information to social networking graphs.

juancampa 9y ago

Seems like a change in the license is on its way: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/pull/363 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/pull/363