22 ms·

Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js

2280 points by dwwoelfel 9y ago

bobpappas 9y ago
Very good news!
awalton 9y ago
Death to asymmetrical patent clauses! Huge victory for OSS.
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  Was it asymmetrical? I thought it was a "we won't sue you for anything in this software, unless you sue us first". This change still allows them to sue you for any reason.
  - veb 9y ago
    to be fair, Facebook could still sue anyone for any reason they can think of irregardless of what you're using! ;-)
    - madeofpalk 9y ago
      They could, but you would still get to keep the PATENTS clause. It was asymmetrical, but in the direction against Facebook.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    It’s asymmetrical in the sense that your license terminates even if you sue them for something that’s not in the software you’re using. I.e. they rip off your feature, and you’re using React, you’re f##d.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      Literally not true. You’d just revert to BSD if you sued. So same protection as now.
      - 0xbear 9y ago
        Literally is true. In the presence of patents BSD license alone (and MIT, too) would basically mean you’re infringing on their IP, and they can and will bring action against you on the basis of your use of their software, even if your legal action against them was over completely unrelated patents.
        abritinthebay 9y ago
        Not sure what you're trying to say as your phrasing is jumbled but the BSD licence offers zero protection from their patents now. They can sue you whenever they like now. This is, of course, true of any other OSS and patent holding company.
      - jjnoakes 9y ago
        Many argue that the difference is between the old explicit grant (which was one-sided) and the new implicit grant (which is more two-sided). Reverting to BSD doesn't remove the fact that the explicit grant was revoked, so the real comparison of one sued is BSD with no inplicit grant to MIT with an implicit grant.
        abritinthebay 9y ago
        Implicit grants have very little case law and what law there is doesn't look too useful for people in this case (the patent(s) would have to be extremely specifically applicable to the code, which most patents are designed not to be). So I trust implicit grants much less than explicit.
        jjnoakes 9y ago
        Right, if they were equal grants, I would too. But they aren't, that's the point.
    - chadaustin 9y ago
      If you sued Facebook, you would have lost the patent grant, but not the copyright. With the new license, there's no patent grant at all, so if any code in React is patented, you're in the same boat as you'd have been if you'd sued in the prior situation. Edit: It seems like some consider MIT, unlike BSD, to have an implied patent grant based on its wording: https://www.scribd.com/document/46088081/Closing-the-Loophole-Open-Source-Licensing-amp-the-Implied-Patent-License-Nadan https://www.scribd.com/document/46088081/Closing-the-Loophol...
      - carussell 9y ago
        Keep in mind that holding a patent allows the patentholder to prohibit someone else from importing, making, selling, or using some product or practice. The MIT license gives you the rights to "use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software", and that's not even exhaustive. (See "without restriction" and "without limitation".) Is there something missing from the second list that you think needs protection from the powers granted to patentholders (the things in the first list)?
mustaflex 9y ago
Wow, that's a fantastic move, huge win for open source.
wdfx 9y ago
:O Never thought this would happen
j_m_b 9y ago
What about GraphQL?
- adamkl 9y ago
  Is the GraphQL spec itself under the BSD+patents clause? Or just their specific implementation? Couldn’t somebody like the Apollo crew create their own implementation if necessary?
  - edsrzf 9y ago
    The problem is that there actually are patents covering GraphQL. So anybody who writes an alternative GraphQL server implementation is potentially infringing upon those patents. The issue with the GraphQL spec is that people actually want a patent grant for alternative implementations, but there isn't one.
- linkmotif 9y ago
  Waiting for update here https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351
- ythn 9y ago
  "This shift naturally raises questions about the rest of Facebook's open source projects. Many of our popular projects will keep the BSD + Patents license for now."
- ryenus 9y ago
  Still an issue: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351, There's a patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028 https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028, and a recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15289676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15289676
- chrisco255 9y ago
  My guess is they go with Apache v2 for GraphQL.
vvanders 9y ago
Looks like React Native isn't included in the list for a license update.
- pavlakoos 9y ago
  What????
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  That's what gets me. There's a very narrow list of packages that they've selected for the MIT treatment. Why isn't the blog post something along the lines of "We're re-licensing all of our open source libraries under the MIT License and removing their patent clauses"? It seems like they're still trying to play games, and are only buckling to the pressure for a tiny number of libraries.
  - randall 9y ago
    My less cynical view (hope) maybe react-native isn't due for an update soon and they'll do it next time there's a version bump?
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      You don't need to update anything else besides the license when changing the license, though? There's no version bump required.
      - cesarb 9y ago
        Isn't the license file part of the distributed .tar.gz, packaging metadata, and other release artifacts? It's bad form to change the contents of a release after it's distributed. So even a small change like that would require a (minor) version bump.
  - sebastianmck 9y ago
    See the fourth paragraph. > This shift naturally raises questions about the rest of Facebook's open source projects. Many of our popular projects will keep the BSD + Patents license for now. We're evaluating those projects' licenses too, but each project is different and alternative licensing options will depend on a variety of factors.
pvinis 9y ago
Well, everyone that didn't want to use react, didn't use it because of the license, so I guess now these people will be happy too. Good news.
- irrational 9y ago
  Except not all the pieces of the React ecosystem are changing license, so... we'll probably end up staying with Vue.
  - danabramov 9y ago
    Which parts do you rely on that haven’t changed it?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - irrational 9y ago
      If we were to move to React, one of the main things we would want to use is React Native. But our lawyers have forbidden us from using any of the Facebook technologies licensed under the current licenses.
maxton 9y ago
This is a very smart move by Facebook, and a win for the open source community as a whole. Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery, but removing the complications of software patents from their licenses will help further drive adoption and remove the precedent they were in danger of setting.
- rocky1138 9y ago
  > Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery Have you ever worked at a large company with its own legal team? It's not such a large mystery.
  - hobofan 9y ago
    I guess you haven't seen the Facebook projects where the patent grant was dumped after a handfull of people asked nicely. There it was more of a "Yeah sure, why not?" by the maintainer without much input from the legal team as it seems.
- wslh 9y ago
  > Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery Big organizations require more time and people to reach consensus at different hierarchical levels. Probably the legal department was the bottleneck.
  - sbarre 9y ago
    I suspect it also took time for the mounting discontent and for the number of voices to reach some kind of tipping point which then caused Facebook to begin the internal process of re-evaluating their licensing. Either way, it's a good move.
- carussell 9y ago
  > a win for the open source community as a whole I'm not sure how changing course from a direction that could have neutralized patents, to one engineered so patent aggressors aren't hurt, is something that can be considered a win for the open source community.
obilgic 9y ago
There was a graphql Patent grant issue as well.
0xbear 9y ago
Why not Apache 2.0 though? That would have been a logical choice.
- liuliu 9y ago
  MIT license doesn't contain any patent clause. So it is the same as BSD + Patents with patents part revoked. Thus, in theory, FB can still have a case on patent over React even if you use the source with copyright grant. Apache 2.0 has a patent grant from my understanding.
  - damosneeze 9y ago
    This is all so complicated, and there's so much conjecture and uncertainty from the community. Engineers interpreting legalese is a bad idea. We need impartial lawyers to explain each of these licenses in plain English, including the ramifications and side effects to consider, and put the debate to rest. This has all been so tiring.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Yup. There’s going to a lot of self congratulation going on in the comments but basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents. Like... ok, great, better really hope you never get into legal issues with FB now
    - jnbiche 9y ago
      > basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents If that were true, then why would they write all those blog posts saying that the BSD+Patents was "for their protection". They even repeated it here. It's pretty clear that the patent grant was asymmetric, but not in the direction you're suggesting here.
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        Oh it works both ways. It's the opposite of the Apache 2 grant for example (which is extremely liberal, and I like it) but that's also exactly what you'd expect from many large companies. There's a reason that BSD/MIT is preferred by companies vs Apache 2 (which has been adopted, yes, but much less). It's because - just like here - it preserves all their patent rights. So yes, you now have less protection but FB has just the same if not more. Don't get me wrong: the patents grant wasn't a great solution but it solved specific problems and concerns on both sides that BSD by itself doesn't even try to address and alternatives (like Apache 2) only address half of.
blaqkangel 9y ago
That was incredibly unexpected. Facebook may very well end up in the majority's good graces with this move. I wonder how some of the bigger players will react (no pun intended) after their abandonment of React in lieu of Vue or some other framework. Interesting times indeed.
- flamedoge 9y ago
  perhaps making a big deal out of it on mainstream media made it less unexpected? Odds are, it was a data-driven (shift in hype/marketshare) decision.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- MikeHolman 9y ago
  >Facebook may very well end up in the majority's good graces with this move. Really? They are doing the minimum possible to prevent an exodus from their stack after a public outcry.
  - pier25 9y ago
    React is pretty popular already. FB only really needs to change the license to keep the growth.
    - pknopf 9y ago
      Exactly. React would have been fine, but to say the big players jumping ship didn't matter is just wrong.
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    There was no sign of an exodus. That’s ludicrously hyperbolic.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      Not at all. There was an exodus brewing. For starters: https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://hacks.hyperspacer.com/app/items/15256532 https://hacks.hyperspacer.com/app/items/15256532
addicted 9y ago
Good move by Facebook. This is highly appreciated.
akras14 9y ago
Kudos to FB
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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amelius 9y ago
But would using those libraries infringe upon any patent of TheFacebook?
mythz 9y ago
React Native would be a notable omission, unless it's included as part of React.
orb_yt 9y ago
Kudos to Facebook and the React community for prompting this change, this was the right move.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adambrenecki 9y ago
Wait, so they're replacing a license that has a dodgy patent grant that everyone distrusted, with a license that doesn't have a patent grant at all? Why not Apache?
- JamesFM 9y ago
  Yeah, exactly, what does this actually accomplish besides putting the user in a worse situation where they are no longer given any sort of patent grant?
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    At least it might give the louder parts of the community that have been consistently complaining about this issue a good reason to stop shouting quite as much
  - Spivak 9y ago
    Because an unspecified parent grant is most likely an implied patent grant, and especially for FOSS there is a very strong case since your are explicitly permitted to study, modify, and use any part of the code.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Probably because they have no patents that cover the concepts these libraries introduce. Perhaps wit some of the others they will go Apache v2. People have been so worked up by the FUD that Facebook can't even relicense under MIT one of the de facto open source licenses without being met with suspicion.
  - magicalist 9y ago
    > Probably because they have no patents that cover the concepts these libraries introduce. Apache 2.0 certainly doesn't require you to have patents in order to use it ("applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s)")
  - 9y ago
damosneeze 9y ago
Thank you, Wordpress.[1] [1] https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Seriously, big thanks go out to Wordpress. They're no small part of this win for Free Software.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - uyoakaoma 9y ago
    Thank you Wordpress.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Well...now back to writing code and shipping things...we can all put our irrational fantasies of patent litigation and being "unacquirable" startups due to React to rest.
    - irrational 9y ago
      It's not irrational when your companies lawyers say that you many not use React due to the licensing, and there is a very real chance you will be terminated if you do. Unless you mean that lawyers are irrational, in which case I would agree (throwing in judges and politicians and anyone else in the legal profession while we are at it).
      - na85 9y ago
        Lawyers do what they do at the behest of their clients. If you want to blame someone for the litigious culture in the US, blame John Q Public and the corporations he works for.
      - chrisco255 9y ago
consto 9y ago
Good job facebook
k__ 9y ago
So, sucks to be WordPress or are they coming back now?
free_everybody 9y ago
Good look for Facebook
amelius 9y ago
Nice. Now if only Facebook changed their attitude regarding tracking and profiling of users, letting users be the "product", grabbing the attention of users with psychological tricks and fake news, then perhaps I'd consider using and supporting their open source projects.
- red023 9y ago
  Totally agree but this stupid slaves to the system actually vote you down and defend this deeply immoral crap of a company.
whatever_dude 9y ago
"I'm sorry you're mad"
aeleos 9y ago
For all the shit facebook got before, this is a pretty surprising move. I don't think anyone could have predicted this.
discordianfish 9y ago
Can someone explain why this is good news? As I understood it, the former license was as permissive but additionally to that included a patent grant?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 9y ago
  People were unhappy with the terms of the patent grant: it stated that FB would grant you a license to its related patents, BUT, if you were to sue FB for patent infringement, your license to use the covered software is terminated. But I very much agree and am puzzled why everyone seems to think this latest move is such a great thing. Removing the patent grant entirely isn't so great.
- carussell 9y ago
  It's a response to placate folks who pick a stance based on the memes that the newstides wash up. In other words, it's not exactly good news at all, it's just a really big deal.
  - irrational 9y ago
    That's not fair. The lawyers at my company (Fortune 150) may have been irrational in forbidding us from using React, but they were hardly influenced by memes.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - discordianfish 9y ago
      And doubt they are okay with using it now.
      - bachaco 9y ago
        Why wouldn't they?
JamesFM 9y ago
Wait, this doesn’t solve anything. They replaced BSD with MIT, which are basically the same license and then they removed any explicit patent grant. So this means the user is actually granted less rights then before. Am I missing something or does this make zero sense?
- dntrkv 9y ago
  Yeah, that's why all the upheaval against the patents grant was so fucking stupid.
  - whipoodle 9y ago
    I'm just glad we can put this one to bed, and focus our efforts on finding the next silly reason not to use React.
- jeeyoungk 9y ago
  The way I interpret it is, explicit patent license implies _less_: - Explicit patent license specifies why / how it can be revoked. - Without an explicit patent license, patent infringement case (by Facebook) against a party that uses Facebook's OSS would be become harder, because one may argue that such grant is implied by Facebook open sourcing the software.
- brandonbloom 9y ago
  That's what all the Facebook & React folks were arguing. Facebook doesn't want to do unconditional patent grants. Plus, they decided that the weak patent retaliation clause in Apache 2 license wasn't strong enough. This new license is strictly riskier for people than the old license, but it's more familiar, so people won't freak out.
  - electriclove 9y ago
    Apache 2 was fine for RocksDB.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
clintonwoo 9y ago
Props to Facebook! A wise move given recent community sentiment against Facebook OSS. I will be glad to continue using Facebook OSS software.
hsod 9y ago
Is the MIT license considered to come with an implicit patent grant?
- ngrilly 9y ago
  Yes, it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...
kelnos 9y ago
So... I guess I still don't understand what was wrong with BSD+Patents. I get that there's legal uncertainty: I can imagine some companies, especially larger ones, not wanting to give up their patent-suit option just because one random small team in their org is using React. And barriers to adoption aren't a great idea when one of your goals is wide adoption. Overall, though, I think making it much harder to file patent suits -- at least for software patents -- is a great thing. Facebook's (and others') implementation of it might have left something to be desired, and they're certainly a large company with a lot of resources behind them, so the power dynamic might be a bit lopsided, but... Well, let's just say I'm a small company or individual who wants to release some open source code. Doing so under a BSD+Patents-style license gives me some protection from any big players who decide to use my software. How is this a bad thing? I suppose I hold a pretty strong anti-patents stance, though. I'd be happy if (most?) patent protection just went away entirely. As an aside, note that it looks like FB is going with straight MIT. So they're not even giving users of their software a patent grant at all anymore[1], and reserve the right to sue you later just for using their software, if they happen to have a patent on something in it. [1] Yes, there are some legal opinions that the MIT license's language includes an implicit patent grant, but I don't believe that's a settled matter.
- SwellJoe 9y ago
  I think it's more about the complexity of licensing, patents, and the uncertainty a new license presents. Using a license that's been in use for a long time, and has the endorsement of major OSS organizations, is pretty much always more comfortable for developers. I wasn't uncomfortable enough with their licenses to rule out their projects based on the license, but I understand the folks who were. Even if my reading of the license makes me unafraid of it, there was enough uncertainty about how a court, particularly courts that have a history of siding with patent trolls, might interpret the license, for it to make some people nervous. Also, the belief that the copyrights and patents involved will always belong to a benevolent actor ignores a lot of tech history. See: SCO, Oracle, etc. for examples of a previously decent stakeholder being consumed by a more malevolent and litigious one with a different interpretation of the law and the license. facebook may be a huge, unassailable, force today...can we be certain that in ten years that'll still be true? I'd bet on it, but I also won't be shocked if something dramatic happens. Sun looked pretty unassailable through the 80s and 90s, and then they didn't. Big companies building big projects have to think about these things if they want to be responsible about the future of their projects. (Again, I agree that in this case, the fear is probably overblown. But, I get where it's coming from.)
s73ver_ 9y ago
It sucks that it took this long, but at the end of the day, they've done the right thing.
logandavis 9y ago
> We'll include the license updates with React 16's release next week. Was this release date known before now? I can't find it anywhere else on Google or Twitter. Man, talk about burying the lede.
sergiotapia 9y ago
>Next week, we are going to relicense our open source projects React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js under the MIT license. Case closed. Could not have picked a better license, thank you Facebook. MIT or bust, I try not to use any other types of licenses in products/libraries I choose for work and personal use.
- zokier 9y ago
  > Case closed. Could not have picked a better license, thank you Facebook. Case not closed, patents still pose a threat. They could (and arguably should) have picked better license, something with explicit permissive patent grant, such as Apache 2.0. This move can barely constitute even as lip service to appease the masses.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Most of React's competitors are licensed MIT I'm curious what you think folks should switch to.
- chris_7 9y ago
  CC0?
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
I had a feeling they'd come round to this but not so quickly.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  They should have done this a month ago.
  - irrational 9y ago
    They should have done this a year ago - before my company settled on Vue.
electriclove 9y ago
Before all the congratulating goes too far, it is important to realize that only some projects had the license change but it went to an MIT license. What people really want is for these projects to be licensed under Apache 2 (like they did with RocksDB). The other thing is that there are many projects that are STILL going to be on the BSD+Patent license. These include widely used projects such as React Native and GraphQL. This behavior is reminiscent of their strategy of invading their users' privacy and then retracting a bit and then doing it again. Wash, rinse, repeat...
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Vue: MIT Angular: MIT Preact: MIT Knockout: MIT JQuery: MIT Backbone: MIT Ember: MIT Aurelia: MIT ... React switches to MIT...People still FUD. WTF.
  - pluma 9y ago
    This can't be upvoted enough. At this point people are just looking for excuses to hate React.
- pluma 9y ago
  As you seem to consider the MIT license insufficient, you evidently don't use any mainstream modern JS library. Tell me again why you think your opinion matters or contributes anything to the discussion?
wwweston 9y ago
> we still believe our BSD + Patents license provides some benefits to users of our projects Is there somewhere where anyone has elaborated a case as to what those benefits to users would actually be?
hoodoof 9y ago
The world won't end for Facebook because it doesn't have this clause.
maxpert 9y ago
Facebook almost ruined these awesome projects just because of some nut head not thinking through. Hopefully this will recover them on many fronts in opensource community. I don't know if they were just playing with our emotions or something but I personally feel happy to hear the news.
unwiredben 9y ago
Fortunately, Facebook's C++ utility library, folly, has been Apache 2.0 since at least 2012 and never had the BSD+patent license put upon it. https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/LICENSE
LibertyBeta 9y ago
Does any one know if this means react native is moving as well? Cause I might consider a move now.
jwildeboer 9y ago
I call it a win for the greater community of F/OSS. Even Facebook cannot ignore us :-)
wolco 9y ago
Are they only removing the clause on those packages and nothing else?
a13n 9y ago
Long live vue's chance at market domination!
- chrisco255 9y ago
  I think Vue is good competition for React. I think if React + Vue become the de facto standards then it's a win for everyone. They're both huge improvements for the web development experience.
- irrational 9y ago
  Hopefully you are right. Competition is always good.
ramonfritsch 9y ago
Nice move! If you guys are still having trouble understanding these licenses, I recommend: https://choosealicense.com/ https://choosealicense.com/
ianstormtaylor 9y ago
There are other popular Javascript packages that aren't mentioned: dataloader draft-js express-graphql flux graphql-js regenerator relay yoga They'll probably stick with BSD+Patents, unless the pressure is kept on, which is unfortunate.
gcommer 9y ago
> Although we still believe our BSD + Patents license provides some benefits to users of our projects I'm probably missing something, but: If their BSD+Patents was actually strictly "better" for the user, could they not just dual license under both? Is BSD+Patents ∪ MIT < MIT for some reason?
- jlrubin 9y ago
  Yeah I was wondering the same. Dual licensing should be strictly more permissive for users, who c=would be free to apply whichever terms gives them better protections.
cies 9y ago
So which FB project still have a BSD+patents license. I count: * ReasonML - https://github.com/facebook/reason/blob/master/PATENTS.txt https://github.com/facebook/reason/blob/master/PATENTS.txt * GraphQL - https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS * react-native - https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/PATENTS * PlanOut - https://github.com/facebook/planout/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/planout/blob/master/PATENTS * Flow - https://github.com/facebook/flow/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/flow/blob/master/PATENTS * Haxl - https://github.com/facebook/Haxl/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/Haxl/blob/master/PATENTS * Flux - https://github.com/facebook/flux/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/flux/blob/master/PATENTS Just a few that I found.. Please reply if you know more project that are still BSD+PATENTS licensed.
- olavgg 9y ago
  https://github.com/facebook/fb.resnet.torch/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/fb.resnet.torch/blob/master/PATE... https://github.com/caffe2/caffe2/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/caffe2/caffe2/blob/master/PATENTS
  - jiayq84 9y ago
    Yangqing (creator and main author of Caffe/Caffe2) here. We are moving to Apache 2.0 in a few days.
- berfarah 9y ago
  Flow is specifically mentioned in the linked release as getting rid of it...
- dehli 9y ago
  According to the link posted, it looks like Flow will also be relicensed to MIT.
- snowybio 9y ago
  https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-ui/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-ui/blob/master/PAT...
LeoNatan25 9y ago
IANAL, but here's an ominous scenario: There is no patent clause now. Assuming some FB patent has crept its way in one of their open source, if a company sues FB for patent infringement, FB would be able to counter-sue for copyright infringement due to the suing company's use of FB's open source. "As long as you don't sue us, we won't sue you" kind of a deal. If the above scenario is true, it seems there is no de facto change beyond the political one. Anyone with more legal expertise able to disprove this scenario?
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  So this post is getting downvoted, but no one is arguing why they disagree or believe this is not a realistic outlook. Emotional responses don't really help anyone, and this is not Reddit.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Yeah I think people are downvoting statements they disagree with...even when they add to the conversation. This is bad because those comments can disappear on HN.
- abiox 9y ago
  > FB would be able to counter-sue for copyright infringement due to the suing company's use of FB's open source the whole point of mit/bsd/etc is copyright grant. fb can only realistically win a suit wrt infringement if they revoke the mit/bsd license first (not sure if this is possible...not sure if it's even been tried before).
  - LeoNatan25 9y ago
    Revoking a license retroactively is not possible. But since there is no patent grant with the MIT license, using the open source software is–potentially–open to patent litigation. I don’t think this has been tested in court yet.
    - Sacho 9y ago
ngrilly 9y ago
Why replace BSD + patent grant with MIT, instead of keeping BSD alone without a patent grant?
- eridius 9y ago
  My guess is so that way when people talk about "BSD-licensed Facebook software" there won't be any confusion as to whether it's BSD or BSD + Patents.
- ngrilly 9y ago
  Answering my own question: They replaced BSD with MIT, because the language used in the MIT license is closer to what constitutes a patent grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...
halfnibble 9y ago
Every time I make a negative comment about React, I get a ton of downvotes. So this time, I'd like to applaud the React legal team for this momentous decision. I will now consider using React in future projects. But I'll still look for a framework with better separation of view and controller logic. And incremental DOM.
jjirsa 9y ago
Reminder that FB had already relicensed RocksDB following https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-303 https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-303
0x0 9y ago
This looks like damage control and is limited to a select few open source projects of theirs. Feel free to change your mind, but think twice about committing to depend on projects from a source that didn't seem to have a problem with this license before the exodus. Will it happen again?
andrewingram 9y ago
Since i'm not a lawyer, I have questions... The patents grant was irrevocable except under explicitly described conditions. A license change wasn't one of these conditions. So: 1) Does the patent grant still apply? i.e. is it now MIT + Patents? 2) If yes/no, what about existing users of React? i.e. if you were a user up to the point of the license change, do you get the grant, but new users don't? 3) Doesn't not having the grant make us worse off? Presumably only the Apache 2 license would be an improvement in this regard? 4) Is this all just PR theater?
- cheald 9y ago
  React 16 will be licensed under MIT. Previous versions of React which you may be using under BSD+patents will remain licensed under BSD+patents. If you upgrade to 16, you should be free and clear of the patents clause. Definitely not PR theater. (IANAL, but this is how relicensing works basically universally)
  - andrewingram 9y ago
    But my understanding is that some patent grant is better than no patent grant. The controversy was about the termination clause favouring Facebook, but it’s still better than not having it. Surely the only true solution would have been to switch to a license that has a more liberal patent grant, eg Apache 2?
    - Sacho 9y ago
      You could make an argument that the MIT license has an "implicit patent grant" due to its wording - check out http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence I don't think much around patents and software is settled, partly because of the reluctance of big players to use software patents.
yahna 9y ago
Does MIT licensing fix the patent issue? Why not just go with BSD and drop the problematic patent clauses?
deleted 9y ago
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foota 9y ago
Can someone explain to me why this is better? Can't Facebook now sue anyone for using their patents?
- foota 9y ago
  Edit: figured it out.
zxia31 9y ago
I am so excited about this news and even register a hacker news account to appreciate FB's behavior.
markyuckerberg 9y ago
As the old saying goes, you will eventually run into someone who doesn't give a fuck who or how powerful you are. Meet your Daddy, Facebook. He is called Automattic. :-) As for people who think the exodus out of React was "imaginary" - I wish FB had actually completely dropped the ball and stayed with the old license. That would have forced Automattic to not merely drop React, but also anoint a competitor which would have probably overtaken React in no time.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  I still think that projects like Vue will pass React soon. Facebook only did the right thing because they saw the impending backlash. The PATENTS file is still in their other repos.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Maybe in 2 years. I don't know about soon.
- ojr 9y ago
  Automattic, the PHP shop? I don't think they have a great influence on what javascript framework is the most popular. The job market is trending towards React and now it will be even more so, the people who thought the patents was no big deal are now rewarded
valarauca1 9y ago
Well this idiotic. BSD+Patents would terminate its patent grants if ever yourself and Facebook entered litigation. Implying Facebook would add a patent suit to their defense/offense. Now they STILL get too! Buuut they look like a good guys. MIT says nothing about Patents. So they can sue _anyone_ using React for patent violations now. —— People should keep the pressure up until they license under Apache2. Then the patent issue is solved.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't BSD/MIT has an implicit patent grant? It would be absurd for a company to argue that they put their software out there for everyone to freely use, but "JUST KIDDING -- we secretly didn't give you rights to use the related patents that we didn't tell you about." It would be interesting to see the backlash if a company ever tries that one. They would probably lose a lot of their own developers as well.
  - valarauca1 9y ago
    It doesn’t. This is BSD/MIT is consider a _bad_ license if you want to convert patent concerns.
    - JoshMnem 9y ago
      It says: "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: [include this notice, no liability]" Without restrictions or limitations. As far as I know, it has not been tested in court, but I think it would be suicide among the developer community for a company to try to do that. Everyone should have patent concerns either way. The ideal solution would be to abolish software patents.
amigoingtodie 9y ago
Somebody wants to run for president.
tvalentius 9y ago
This is a great news, Thanks Facebook.
vinniejames 9y ago
I'm curious, what prevents them from going back on this for subsequent releases? I wonder from a more general sense with open source licenses
zengid 9y ago
I wonder if they'll put ReasonML under MIT as well. It's a really compelling project, especially considering how it can be combined with React. I suppose if they don't change it, one could just use Elm!
raulk 9y ago
A huge win for activism! I will analyse the new situation in a new post soon :-)
shaohua 9y ago
Thank you. This is the right thing to do.
johnhenry 9y ago
I wonder what this means for their other projects under the same patents license? I've been really excited about pre-pack (https://github.com/facebook/prepack https://github.com/facebook/prepack) but I'm afraid of being bound to their license agreement.
nnain 9y ago
I wonder if someone has done (could do) an analysis of how much dip, the BSD+Patents License caused, in the adoption of React?
lonk 9y ago
So is this means I can patent React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js? Or they are still patented and only license changed?
jordybg 9y ago
Nothing on GraphQL, right? https://www.google.bg/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/09/20/gitlab_suspends_graphql_project_over_facebook_license_terms/ https://www.google.bg/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/0...
philosopherlawr 9y ago
Thank you facebook for addressing the community concerns. Your tools are great and I really am happy that you respond nad listen to feedback - even when lawyers get involved.
neilwilson 9y ago
Still think software patents are a defensible idea?
anonyfox 9y ago
Of this happens, it will be the major turning point of React + JSX "winning" the frontend world. Another one is tooling, but the recent typescript Compiler can do TSX natively (no webpack config etc required). The last one is size/performance, but afaik the guy behind inferno is now working on react, this all should union React's "forks" into a single force. Interesting times we live in, lets hope that facebook does not fail on this.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Mmm, I think that point already happened before the patent thing. Which is part of what made this whole dustup so farcical, but that doesn't matter now. I would just like to see people evaluate and decide whether to use it based on the actual technology, and not FUD.
foo101 9y ago
Why didn't Facebook just choose the Apache license that has patent clause and is a standard license?
- jhasse 9y ago
  Maybe because it's incompatible with the GPLv2.
yuvalkarmi 9y ago
Finally!
sneak 9y ago
Why next week? Why announce it in advance and not just push to GitHub on the same day? I am curious about the reason for the delay.
fbgugli 9y ago
Thats facebook's only way anymore trying to keep develops intrest in react. Please use any other library for this: riotjs vuejs are very good alternatives!
ZenoArrow 9y ago
I think this a very positive move by Facebook. Dropping the patents part of the licence encourages a more open playing field. Now React can continue to grow unencumbered by the legal minefield found in the world of software patents (the patents will unfortunately still exist, but the chances of them being brought into a court case are greatly reduced).
1111bradybunch1 9y ago
facebook.com
didibus 9y ago
Well, I hope it still has a patent grant, just a more reasonable one.
igl 9y ago
My beef with software patents is bigger than my dislike of the Facebook institution. I think something like a weak patent clause would be nice for FOSS projects but it's not explored by many so far. Interestingly more people seem blatently annoyed that their employer forbids them to use e.g. React and not about what the license actually means.
marenkay 9y ago
... and that is the point, where it might be a good idea to consider not using software from Facebook any longer. This whole patent/license circus is not really a decent advertisement. The original reasoning already wasn't. The only proper solution to the whole drama is to end handing patents on software, as it pretty much is pointless.
tzs 9y ago
There have been a few comments on whether or not the MIT license includes an implicit patent license, or is just a copyright license. It should be noted that there is nothing in the MIT license that actually says it is a copyright license. Here is what it grants you permission to do: > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions It is giving you permission to "deal in the Software". What that means is not defined but it gives several examples that it includes: use, copy, modify, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies. Several of those, including use, copy, sell copies and maybe distribute, are things that require patent permission if the software is patented. The plain language of the license says that you have permission to do those things, and the only way you can have that permission is if you have a patent license, so I don't see how a court could read the license as not including a patent grant if the licensor has patents that cover it.
jayajay 9y ago
It's nice being one of those people who wasn't using React because of its strange licensing. Facebook has its history. Now I can say it's really good to see that Facebook make the right call. I will still not be using React. It's just too heavy, same order of magnitude as jQuery.
deleted 9y ago
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mannanali413 9y ago
For me the takeaway was getting familiar with the various licensing systems. Going forward, I think I would be giving heed to the license a particular OSS carries with it before using it for production level development.

2280 points by dwwoelfel 9y ago

bobpappas 9y ago

Very good news!

awalton 9y ago

Death to asymmetrical patent clauses! Huge victory for OSS.

jonny_eh 9y ago
Was it asymmetrical? I thought it was a "we won't sue you for anything in this software, unless you sue us first". This change still allows them to sue you for any reason.
- veb 9y ago
  to be fair, Facebook could still sue anyone for any reason they can think of irregardless of what you're using! ;-)
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    They could, but you would still get to keep the PATENTS clause. It was asymmetrical, but in the direction against Facebook.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  It’s asymmetrical in the sense that your license terminates even if you sue them for something that’s not in the software you’re using. I.e. they rip off your feature, and you’re using React, you’re f##d.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    Literally not true. You’d just revert to BSD if you sued. So same protection as now.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Literally is true. In the presence of patents BSD license alone (and MIT, too) would basically mean you’re infringing on their IP, and they can and will bring action against you on the basis of your use of their software, even if your legal action against them was over completely unrelated patents.
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        Not sure what you're trying to say as your phrasing is jumbled but the BSD licence offers zero protection from their patents now. They can sue you whenever they like now. This is, of course, true of any other OSS and patent holding company.
    - jjnoakes 9y ago
      Many argue that the difference is between the old explicit grant (which was one-sided) and the new implicit grant (which is more two-sided). Reverting to BSD doesn't remove the fact that the explicit grant was revoked, so the real comparison of one sued is BSD with no inplicit grant to MIT with an implicit grant.
      - abritinthebay 9y ago
        Implicit grants have very little case law and what law there is doesn't look too useful for people in this case (the patent(s) would have to be extremely specifically applicable to the code, which most patents are designed not to be). So I trust implicit grants much less than explicit.
        jjnoakes 9y ago
        Right, if they were equal grants, I would too. But they aren't, that's the point.
  - chadaustin 9y ago
    If you sued Facebook, you would have lost the patent grant, but not the copyright. With the new license, there's no patent grant at all, so if any code in React is patented, you're in the same boat as you'd have been if you'd sued in the prior situation. Edit: It seems like some consider MIT, unlike BSD, to have an implied patent grant based on its wording: https://www.scribd.com/document/46088081/Closing-the-Loophole-Open-Source-Licensing-amp-the-Implied-Patent-License-Nadan https://www.scribd.com/document/46088081/Closing-the-Loophol...
    - carussell 9y ago
      Keep in mind that holding a patent allows the patentholder to prohibit someone else from importing, making, selling, or using some product or practice. The MIT license gives you the rights to "use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software", and that's not even exhaustive. (See "without restriction" and "without limitation".) Is there something missing from the second list that you think needs protection from the powers granted to patentholders (the things in the first list)?

mustaflex 9y ago

Wow, that's a fantastic move, huge win for open source.

wdfx 9y ago

:O Never thought this would happen

j_m_b 9y ago

What about GraphQL?

adamkl 9y ago
Is the GraphQL spec itself under the BSD+patents clause? Or just their specific implementation? Couldn’t somebody like the Apollo crew create their own implementation if necessary?
- edsrzf 9y ago
  The problem is that there actually are patents covering GraphQL. So anybody who writes an alternative GraphQL server implementation is potentially infringing upon those patents. The issue with the GraphQL spec is that people actually want a patent grant for alternative implementations, but there isn't one.
linkmotif 9y ago
Waiting for update here https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351
ythn 9y ago
"This shift naturally raises questions about the rest of Facebook's open source projects. Many of our popular projects will keep the BSD + Patents license for now."
ryenus 9y ago
Still an issue: https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351 https://github.com/facebook/graphql/issues/351, There's a patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028 https://www.google.com/patents/US9646028, and a recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15289676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15289676
chrisco255 9y ago
My guess is they go with Apache v2 for GraphQL.

vvanders 9y ago

Looks like React Native isn't included in the list for a license update.

pavlakoos 9y ago
What????
CydeWeys 9y ago
That's what gets me. There's a very narrow list of packages that they've selected for the MIT treatment. Why isn't the blog post something along the lines of "We're re-licensing all of our open source libraries under the MIT License and removing their patent clauses"? It seems like they're still trying to play games, and are only buckling to the pressure for a tiny number of libraries.
- randall 9y ago
  My less cynical view (hope) maybe react-native isn't due for an update soon and they'll do it next time there's a version bump?
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    You don't need to update anything else besides the license when changing the license, though? There's no version bump required.
    - cesarb 9y ago
      Isn't the license file part of the distributed .tar.gz, packaging metadata, and other release artifacts? It's bad form to change the contents of a release after it's distributed. So even a small change like that would require a (minor) version bump.
- sebastianmck 9y ago
  See the fourth paragraph. > This shift naturally raises questions about the rest of Facebook's open source projects. Many of our popular projects will keep the BSD + Patents license for now. We're evaluating those projects' licenses too, but each project is different and alternative licensing options will depend on a variety of factors.

pvinis 9y ago

Well, everyone that didn't want to use react, didn't use it because of the license, so I guess now these people will be happy too. Good news.

irrational 9y ago
Except not all the pieces of the React ecosystem are changing license, so... we'll probably end up staying with Vue.
- danabramov 9y ago
  Which parts do you rely on that haven’t changed it?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - irrational 9y ago
    If we were to move to React, one of the main things we would want to use is React Native. But our lawyers have forbidden us from using any of the Facebook technologies licensed under the current licenses.

maxton 9y ago

This is a very smart move by Facebook, and a win for the open source community as a whole. Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery, but removing the complications of software patents from their licenses will help further drive adoption and remove the precedent they were in danger of setting.

rocky1138 9y ago
> Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery Have you ever worked at a large company with its own legal team? It's not such a large mystery.
- hobofan 9y ago
  I guess you haven't seen the Facebook projects where the patent grant was dumped after a handfull of people asked nicely. There it was more of a "Yeah sure, why not?" by the maintainer without much input from the legal team as it seems.
wslh 9y ago
> Why it took so long for the license change is a bit of a mystery Big organizations require more time and people to reach consensus at different hierarchical levels. Probably the legal department was the bottleneck.
- sbarre 9y ago
  I suspect it also took time for the mounting discontent and for the number of voices to reach some kind of tipping point which then caused Facebook to begin the internal process of re-evaluating their licensing. Either way, it's a good move.
carussell 9y ago
> a win for the open source community as a whole I'm not sure how changing course from a direction that could have neutralized patents, to one engineered so patent aggressors aren't hurt, is something that can be considered a win for the open source community.

obilgic 9y ago

There was a graphql Patent grant issue as well.

0xbear 9y ago

Why not Apache 2.0 though? That would have been a logical choice.

liuliu 9y ago
MIT license doesn't contain any patent clause. So it is the same as BSD + Patents with patents part revoked. Thus, in theory, FB can still have a case on patent over React even if you use the source with copyright grant. Apache 2.0 has a patent grant from my understanding.
- damosneeze 9y ago
  This is all so complicated, and there's so much conjecture and uncertainty from the community. Engineers interpreting legalese is a bad idea. We need impartial lawyers to explain each of these licenses in plain English, including the ramifications and side effects to consider, and put the debate to rest. This has all been so tiring.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  Yup. There’s going to a lot of self congratulation going on in the comments but basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents. Like... ok, great, better really hope you never get into legal issues with FB now
  - jnbiche 9y ago
    > basically all this has done is remove explicit granting of patents If that were true, then why would they write all those blog posts saying that the BSD+Patents was "for their protection". They even repeated it here. It's pretty clear that the patent grant was asymmetric, but not in the direction you're suggesting here.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      Oh it works both ways. It's the opposite of the Apache 2 grant for example (which is extremely liberal, and I like it) but that's also exactly what you'd expect from many large companies. There's a reason that BSD/MIT is preferred by companies vs Apache 2 (which has been adopted, yes, but much less). It's because - just like here - it preserves all their patent rights. So yes, you now have less protection but FB has just the same if not more. Don't get me wrong: the patents grant wasn't a great solution but it solved specific problems and concerns on both sides that BSD by itself doesn't even try to address and alternatives (like Apache 2) only address half of.

blaqkangel 9y ago

That was incredibly unexpected. Facebook may very well end up in the majority's good graces with this move. I wonder how some of the bigger players will react (no pun intended) after their abandonment of React in lieu of Vue or some other framework. Interesting times indeed.

flamedoge 9y ago
perhaps making a big deal out of it on mainstream media made it less unexpected? Odds are, it was a data-driven (shift in hype/marketshare) decision.
deleted 9y ago
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MikeHolman 9y ago
>Facebook may very well end up in the majority's good graces with this move. Really? They are doing the minimum possible to prevent an exodus from their stack after a public outcry.
- pier25 9y ago
  React is pretty popular already. FB only really needs to change the license to keep the growth.
  - pknopf 9y ago
    Exactly. React would have been fine, but to say the big players jumping ship didn't matter is just wrong.
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  There was no sign of an exodus. That’s ludicrously hyperbolic.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    Not at all. There was an exodus brewing. For starters: https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://hacks.hyperspacer.com/app/items/15256532 https://hacks.hyperspacer.com/app/items/15256532

addicted 9y ago

Good move by Facebook. This is highly appreciated.

akras14 9y ago

Kudos to FB

deleted 9y ago

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deleted 9y ago

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amelius 9y ago

But would using those libraries infringe upon any patent of TheFacebook?

mythz 9y ago

React Native would be a notable omission, unless it's included as part of React.

orb_yt 9y ago

Kudos to Facebook and the React community for prompting this change, this was the right move.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

adambrenecki 9y ago

Wait, so they're replacing a license that has a dodgy patent grant that everyone distrusted, with a license that doesn't have a patent grant at all? Why not Apache?

JamesFM 9y ago
Yeah, exactly, what does this actually accomplish besides putting the user in a worse situation where they are no longer given any sort of patent grant?
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  At least it might give the louder parts of the community that have been consistently complaining about this issue a good reason to stop shouting quite as much
- Spivak 9y ago
  Because an unspecified parent grant is most likely an implied patent grant, and especially for FOSS there is a very strong case since your are explicitly permitted to study, modify, and use any part of the code.
chrisco255 9y ago
Probably because they have no patents that cover the concepts these libraries introduce. Perhaps wit some of the others they will go Apache v2. People have been so worked up by the FUD that Facebook can't even relicense under MIT one of the de facto open source licenses without being met with suspicion.
- magicalist 9y ago
  > Probably because they have no patents that cover the concepts these libraries introduce. Apache 2.0 certainly doesn't require you to have patents in order to use it ("applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s)")
- 9y ago

damosneeze 9y ago

Thank you, Wordpress.[1] [1] https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/

CydeWeys 9y ago
Seriously, big thanks go out to Wordpress. They're no small part of this win for Free Software.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- uyoakaoma 9y ago
  Thank you Wordpress.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Well...now back to writing code and shipping things...we can all put our irrational fantasies of patent litigation and being "unacquirable" startups due to React to rest.
  - irrational 9y ago
    It's not irrational when your companies lawyers say that you many not use React due to the licensing, and there is a very real chance you will be terminated if you do. Unless you mean that lawyers are irrational, in which case I would agree (throwing in judges and politicians and anyone else in the legal profession while we are at it).
    - na85 9y ago
      Lawyers do what they do at the behest of their clients. If you want to blame someone for the litigious culture in the US, blame John Q Public and the corporations he works for.
    - chrisco255 9y ago

consto 9y ago

Good job facebook

k__ 9y ago

So, sucks to be WordPress or are they coming back now?

free_everybody 9y ago

Good look for Facebook

amelius 9y ago

Nice. Now if only Facebook changed their attitude regarding tracking and profiling of users, letting users be the "product", grabbing the attention of users with psychological tricks and fake news, then perhaps I'd consider using and supporting their open source projects.

red023 9y ago
Totally agree but this stupid slaves to the system actually vote you down and defend this deeply immoral crap of a company.

whatever_dude 9y ago

"I'm sorry you're mad"

aeleos 9y ago

For all the shit facebook got before, this is a pretty surprising move. I don't think anyone could have predicted this.

discordianfish 9y ago

Can someone explain why this is good news? As I understood it, the former license was as permissive but additionally to that included a patent grant?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kelnos 9y ago
People were unhappy with the terms of the patent grant: it stated that FB would grant you a license to its related patents, BUT, if you were to sue FB for patent infringement, your license to use the covered software is terminated. But I very much agree and am puzzled why everyone seems to think this latest move is such a great thing. Removing the patent grant entirely isn't so great.
carussell 9y ago
It's a response to placate folks who pick a stance based on the memes that the newstides wash up. In other words, it's not exactly good news at all, it's just a really big deal.
- irrational 9y ago
  That's not fair. The lawyers at my company (Fortune 150) may have been irrational in forbidding us from using React, but they were hardly influenced by memes.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - discordianfish 9y ago
    And doubt they are okay with using it now.
    - bachaco 9y ago
      Why wouldn't they?

JamesFM 9y ago

Wait, this doesn’t solve anything. They replaced BSD with MIT, which are basically the same license and then they removed any explicit patent grant. So this means the user is actually granted less rights then before. Am I missing something or does this make zero sense?

dntrkv 9y ago
Yeah, that's why all the upheaval against the patents grant was so fucking stupid.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  I'm just glad we can put this one to bed, and focus our efforts on finding the next silly reason not to use React.
jeeyoungk 9y ago
The way I interpret it is, explicit patent license implies _less_: - Explicit patent license specifies why / how it can be revoked. - Without an explicit patent license, patent infringement case (by Facebook) against a party that uses Facebook's OSS would be become harder, because one may argue that such grant is implied by Facebook open sourcing the software.
brandonbloom 9y ago
That's what all the Facebook & React folks were arguing. Facebook doesn't want to do unconditional patent grants. Plus, they decided that the weak patent retaliation clause in Apache 2 license wasn't strong enough. This new license is strictly riskier for people than the old license, but it's more familiar, so people won't freak out.
- electriclove 9y ago
  Apache 2 was fine for RocksDB.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

clintonwoo 9y ago

Props to Facebook! A wise move given recent community sentiment against Facebook OSS. I will be glad to continue using Facebook OSS software.

hsod 9y ago

Is the MIT license considered to come with an implicit patent grant?

ngrilly 9y ago
Yes, it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...

kelnos 9y ago

So... I guess I still don't understand what was wrong with BSD+Patents. I get that there's legal uncertainty: I can imagine some companies, especially larger ones, not wanting to give up their patent-suit option just because one random small team in their org is using React. And barriers to adoption aren't a great idea when one of your goals is wide adoption. Overall, though, I think making it much harder to file patent suits -- at least for software patents -- is a great thing. Facebook's (and others') implementation of it might have left something to be desired, and they're certainly a large company with a lot of resources behind them, so the power dynamic might be a bit lopsided, but... Well, let's just say I'm a small company or individual who wants to release some open source code. Doing so under a BSD+Patents-style license gives me some protection from any big players who decide to use my software. How is this a bad thing? I suppose I hold a pretty strong anti-patents stance, though. I'd be happy if (most?) patent protection just went away entirely. As an aside, note that it looks like FB is going with straight MIT. So they're not even giving users of their software a patent grant at all anymore[1], and reserve the right to sue you later just for using their software, if they happen to have a patent on something in it. [1] Yes, there are some legal opinions that the MIT license's language includes an implicit patent grant, but I don't believe that's a settled matter.

SwellJoe 9y ago
I think it's more about the complexity of licensing, patents, and the uncertainty a new license presents. Using a license that's been in use for a long time, and has the endorsement of major OSS organizations, is pretty much always more comfortable for developers. I wasn't uncomfortable enough with their licenses to rule out their projects based on the license, but I understand the folks who were. Even if my reading of the license makes me unafraid of it, there was enough uncertainty about how a court, particularly courts that have a history of siding with patent trolls, might interpret the license, for it to make some people nervous. Also, the belief that the copyrights and patents involved will always belong to a benevolent actor ignores a lot of tech history. See: SCO, Oracle, etc. for examples of a previously decent stakeholder being consumed by a more malevolent and litigious one with a different interpretation of the law and the license. facebook may be a huge, unassailable, force today...can we be certain that in ten years that'll still be true? I'd bet on it, but I also won't be shocked if something dramatic happens. Sun looked pretty unassailable through the 80s and 90s, and then they didn't. Big companies building big projects have to think about these things if they want to be responsible about the future of their projects. (Again, I agree that in this case, the fear is probably overblown. But, I get where it's coming from.)

s73ver_ 9y ago

It sucks that it took this long, but at the end of the day, they've done the right thing.

logandavis 9y ago

> We'll include the license updates with React 16's release next week. Was this release date known before now? I can't find it anywhere else on Google or Twitter. Man, talk about burying the lede.

sergiotapia 9y ago

>Next week, we are going to relicense our open source projects React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js under the MIT license. Case closed. Could not have picked a better license, thank you Facebook. MIT or bust, I try not to use any other types of licenses in products/libraries I choose for work and personal use.

zokier 9y ago
> Case closed. Could not have picked a better license, thank you Facebook. Case not closed, patents still pose a threat. They could (and arguably should) have picked better license, something with explicit permissive patent grant, such as Apache 2.0. This move can barely constitute even as lip service to appease the masses.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Most of React's competitors are licensed MIT I'm curious what you think folks should switch to.
chris_7 9y ago
CC0?

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

I had a feeling they'd come round to this but not so quickly.

chrisco255 9y ago
They should have done this a month ago.
- irrational 9y ago
  They should have done this a year ago - before my company settled on Vue.

electriclove 9y ago

Before all the congratulating goes too far, it is important to realize that only some projects had the license change but it went to an MIT license. What people really want is for these projects to be licensed under Apache 2 (like they did with RocksDB). The other thing is that there are many projects that are STILL going to be on the BSD+Patent license. These include widely used projects such as React Native and GraphQL. This behavior is reminiscent of their strategy of invading their users' privacy and then retracting a bit and then doing it again. Wash, rinse, repeat...

chrisco255 9y ago
Vue: MIT Angular: MIT Preact: MIT Knockout: MIT JQuery: MIT Backbone: MIT Ember: MIT Aurelia: MIT ... React switches to MIT...People still FUD. WTF.
- pluma 9y ago
  This can't be upvoted enough. At this point people are just looking for excuses to hate React.
pluma 9y ago
As you seem to consider the MIT license insufficient, you evidently don't use any mainstream modern JS library. Tell me again why you think your opinion matters or contributes anything to the discussion?

wwweston 9y ago

> we still believe our BSD + Patents license provides some benefits to users of our projects Is there somewhere where anyone has elaborated a case as to what those benefits to users would actually be?

hoodoof 9y ago

The world won't end for Facebook because it doesn't have this clause.

maxpert 9y ago

Facebook almost ruined these awesome projects just because of some nut head not thinking through. Hopefully this will recover them on many fronts in opensource community. I don't know if they were just playing with our emotions or something but I personally feel happy to hear the news.

unwiredben 9y ago

Fortunately, Facebook's C++ utility library, folly, has been Apache 2.0 since at least 2012 and never had the BSD+patent license put upon it. https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/facebook/folly/blob/master/LICENSE

LibertyBeta 9y ago

Does any one know if this means react native is moving as well? Cause I might consider a move now.

jwildeboer 9y ago

I call it a win for the greater community of F/OSS. Even Facebook cannot ignore us :-)

wolco 9y ago

Are they only removing the clause on those packages and nothing else?

a13n 9y ago

Long live vue's chance at market domination!

chrisco255 9y ago
I think Vue is good competition for React. I think if React + Vue become the de facto standards then it's a win for everyone. They're both huge improvements for the web development experience.
irrational 9y ago
Hopefully you are right. Competition is always good.

ramonfritsch 9y ago

Nice move! If you guys are still having trouble understanding these licenses, I recommend: https://choosealicense.com/ https://choosealicense.com/

ianstormtaylor 9y ago

There are other popular Javascript packages that aren't mentioned: dataloader draft-js express-graphql flux graphql-js regenerator relay yoga They'll probably stick with BSD+Patents, unless the pressure is kept on, which is unfortunate.

gcommer 9y ago

> Although we still believe our BSD + Patents license provides some benefits to users of our projects I'm probably missing something, but: If their BSD+Patents was actually strictly "better" for the user, could they not just dual license under both? Is BSD+Patents ∪ MIT < MIT for some reason?

jlrubin 9y ago
Yeah I was wondering the same. Dual licensing should be strictly more permissive for users, who c=would be free to apply whichever terms gives them better protections.

cies 9y ago

So which FB project still have a BSD+patents license. I count: * ReasonML - https://github.com/facebook/reason/blob/master/PATENTS.txt https://github.com/facebook/reason/blob/master/PATENTS.txt * GraphQL - https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js/blob/master/PATENTS * react-native - https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/PATENTS * PlanOut - https://github.com/facebook/planout/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/planout/blob/master/PATENTS * Flow - https://github.com/facebook/flow/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/flow/blob/master/PATENTS * Haxl - https://github.com/facebook/Haxl/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/Haxl/blob/master/PATENTS * Flux - https://github.com/facebook/flux/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/flux/blob/master/PATENTS Just a few that I found.. Please reply if you know more project that are still BSD+PATENTS licensed.

olavgg 9y ago
https://github.com/facebook/fb.resnet.torch/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook/fb.resnet.torch/blob/master/PATE... https://github.com/caffe2/caffe2/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/caffe2/caffe2/blob/master/PATENTS
- jiayq84 9y ago
  Yangqing (creator and main author of Caffe/Caffe2) here. We are moving to Apache 2.0 in a few days.
berfarah 9y ago
Flow is specifically mentioned in the linked release as getting rid of it...
dehli 9y ago
According to the link posted, it looks like Flow will also be relicensed to MIT.
snowybio 9y ago
https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-ui/blob/master/PATENTS https://github.com/facebook-atom/atom-ide-ui/blob/master/PAT...

LeoNatan25 9y ago

IANAL, but here's an ominous scenario: There is no patent clause now. Assuming some FB patent has crept its way in one of their open source, if a company sues FB for patent infringement, FB would be able to counter-sue for copyright infringement due to the suing company's use of FB's open source. "As long as you don't sue us, we won't sue you" kind of a deal. If the above scenario is true, it seems there is no de facto change beyond the political one. Anyone with more legal expertise able to disprove this scenario?

LeoNatan25 9y ago
So this post is getting downvoted, but no one is arguing why they disagree or believe this is not a realistic outlook. Emotional responses don't really help anyone, and this is not Reddit.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Yeah I think people are downvoting statements they disagree with...even when they add to the conversation. This is bad because those comments can disappear on HN.
abiox 9y ago
> FB would be able to counter-sue for copyright infringement due to the suing company's use of FB's open source the whole point of mit/bsd/etc is copyright grant. fb can only realistically win a suit wrt infringement if they revoke the mit/bsd license first (not sure if this is possible...not sure if it's even been tried before).
- LeoNatan25 9y ago
  Revoking a license retroactively is not possible. But since there is no patent grant with the MIT license, using the open source software is–potentially–open to patent litigation. I don’t think this has been tested in court yet.
  - Sacho 9y ago

ngrilly 9y ago

Why replace BSD + patent grant with MIT, instead of keeping BSD alone without a patent grant?

eridius 9y ago
My guess is so that way when people talk about "BSD-licensed Facebook software" there won't be any confusion as to whether it's BSD or BSD + Patents.
ngrilly 9y ago
Answering my own question: They replaced BSD with MIT, because the language used in the MIT license is closer to what constitutes a patent grant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...

halfnibble 9y ago

Every time I make a negative comment about React, I get a ton of downvotes. So this time, I'd like to applaud the React legal team for this momentous decision. I will now consider using React in future projects. But I'll still look for a framework with better separation of view and controller logic. And incremental DOM.

jjirsa 9y ago

Reminder that FB had already relicensed RocksDB following https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-303 https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LEGAL-303

0x0 9y ago

This looks like damage control and is limited to a select few open source projects of theirs. Feel free to change your mind, but think twice about committing to depend on projects from a source that didn't seem to have a problem with this license before the exodus. Will it happen again?

andrewingram 9y ago

Since i'm not a lawyer, I have questions... The patents grant was irrevocable except under explicitly described conditions. A license change wasn't one of these conditions. So: 1) Does the patent grant still apply? i.e. is it now MIT + Patents? 2) If yes/no, what about existing users of React? i.e. if you were a user up to the point of the license change, do you get the grant, but new users don't? 3) Doesn't not having the grant make us worse off? Presumably only the Apache 2 license would be an improvement in this regard? 4) Is this all just PR theater?

cheald 9y ago
React 16 will be licensed under MIT. Previous versions of React which you may be using under BSD+patents will remain licensed under BSD+patents. If you upgrade to 16, you should be free and clear of the patents clause. Definitely not PR theater. (IANAL, but this is how relicensing works basically universally)
- andrewingram 9y ago
  But my understanding is that some patent grant is better than no patent grant. The controversy was about the termination clause favouring Facebook, but it’s still better than not having it. Surely the only true solution would have been to switch to a license that has a more liberal patent grant, eg Apache 2?
  - Sacho 9y ago
    You could make an argument that the MIT license has an "implicit patent grant" due to its wording - check out http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Implicit_patent_licence I don't think much around patents and software is settled, partly because of the reluctance of big players to use software patents.

yahna 9y ago

Does MIT licensing fix the patent issue? Why not just go with BSD and drop the problematic patent clauses?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

foota 9y ago

Can someone explain to me why this is better? Can't Facebook now sue anyone for using their patents?

foota 9y ago
Edit: figured it out.

zxia31 9y ago

I am so excited about this news and even register a hacker news account to appreciate FB's behavior.

markyuckerberg 9y ago

As the old saying goes, you will eventually run into someone who doesn't give a fuck who or how powerful you are. Meet your Daddy, Facebook. He is called Automattic. :-) As for people who think the exodus out of React was "imaginary" - I wish FB had actually completely dropped the ball and stayed with the old license. That would have forced Automattic to not merely drop React, but also anoint a competitor which would have probably overtaken React in no time.

JoshMnem 9y ago
I still think that projects like Vue will pass React soon. Facebook only did the right thing because they saw the impending backlash. The PATENTS file is still in their other repos.
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Maybe in 2 years. I don't know about soon.
ojr 9y ago
Automattic, the PHP shop? I don't think they have a great influence on what javascript framework is the most popular. The job market is trending towards React and now it will be even more so, the people who thought the patents was no big deal are now rewarded

valarauca1 9y ago

Well this idiotic. BSD+Patents would terminate its patent grants if ever yourself and Facebook entered litigation. Implying Facebook would add a patent suit to their defense/offense. Now they STILL get too! Buuut they look like a good guys. MIT says nothing about Patents. So they can sue _anyone_ using React for patent violations now. —— People should keep the pressure up until they license under Apache2. Then the patent issue is solved.

JoshMnem 9y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't BSD/MIT has an implicit patent grant? It would be absurd for a company to argue that they put their software out there for everyone to freely use, but "JUST KIDDING -- we secretly didn't give you rights to use the related patents that we didn't tell you about." It would be interesting to see the backlash if a company ever tries that one. They would probably lose a lot of their own developers as well.
- valarauca1 9y ago
  It doesn’t. This is BSD/MIT is consider a _bad_ license if you want to convert patent concerns.
  - JoshMnem 9y ago
    It says: "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: [include this notice, no liability]" Without restrictions or limitations. As far as I know, it has not been tested in court, but I think it would be suicide among the developer community for a company to try to do that. Everyone should have patent concerns either way. The ideal solution would be to abolish software patents.

amigoingtodie 9y ago

Somebody wants to run for president.

tvalentius 9y ago

This is a great news, Thanks Facebook.

vinniejames 9y ago

I'm curious, what prevents them from going back on this for subsequent releases? I wonder from a more general sense with open source licenses

zengid 9y ago

I wonder if they'll put ReasonML under MIT as well. It's a really compelling project, especially considering how it can be combined with React. I suppose if they don't change it, one could just use Elm!

raulk 9y ago

A huge win for activism! I will analyse the new situation in a new post soon :-)

shaohua 9y ago

Thank you. This is the right thing to do.

johnhenry 9y ago

I wonder what this means for their other projects under the same patents license? I've been really excited about pre-pack (https://github.com/facebook/prepack https://github.com/facebook/prepack) but I'm afraid of being bound to their license agreement.

nnain 9y ago

I wonder if someone has done (could do) an analysis of how much dip, the BSD+Patents License caused, in the adoption of React?

lonk 9y ago

So is this means I can patent React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js? Or they are still patented and only license changed?

jordybg 9y ago

Nothing on GraphQL, right? https://www.google.bg/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/09/20/gitlab_suspends_graphql_project_over_facebook_license_terms/ https://www.google.bg/amp/s/www.theregister.co.uk/AMP/2017/0...

philosopherlawr 9y ago

Thank you facebook for addressing the community concerns. Your tools are great and I really am happy that you respond nad listen to feedback - even when lawyers get involved.

neilwilson 9y ago

Still think software patents are a defensible idea?

anonyfox 9y ago

Of this happens, it will be the major turning point of React + JSX "winning" the frontend world. Another one is tooling, but the recent typescript Compiler can do TSX natively (no webpack config etc required). The last one is size/performance, but afaik the guy behind inferno is now working on react, this all should union React's "forks" into a single force. Interesting times we live in, lets hope that facebook does not fail on this.

whipoodle 9y ago
Mmm, I think that point already happened before the patent thing. Which is part of what made this whole dustup so farcical, but that doesn't matter now. I would just like to see people evaluate and decide whether to use it based on the actual technology, and not FUD.

foo101 9y ago

Why didn't Facebook just choose the Apache license that has patent clause and is a standard license?

jhasse 9y ago
Maybe because it's incompatible with the GPLv2.

yuvalkarmi 9y ago

Finally!

sneak 9y ago

Why next week? Why announce it in advance and not just push to GitHub on the same day? I am curious about the reason for the delay.

fbgugli 9y ago

Thats facebook's only way anymore trying to keep develops intrest in react. Please use any other library for this: riotjs vuejs are very good alternatives!

ZenoArrow 9y ago

I think this a very positive move by Facebook. Dropping the patents part of the licence encourages a more open playing field. Now React can continue to grow unencumbered by the legal minefield found in the world of software patents (the patents will unfortunately still exist, but the chances of them being brought into a court case are greatly reduced).

1111bradybunch1 9y ago

facebook.com

didibus 9y ago

Well, I hope it still has a patent grant, just a more reasonable one.

igl 9y ago

My beef with software patents is bigger than my dislike of the Facebook institution. I think something like a weak patent clause would be nice for FOSS projects but it's not explored by many so far. Interestingly more people seem blatently annoyed that their employer forbids them to use e.g. React and not about what the license actually means.

marenkay 9y ago

... and that is the point, where it might be a good idea to consider not using software from Facebook any longer. This whole patent/license circus is not really a decent advertisement. The original reasoning already wasn't. The only proper solution to the whole drama is to end handing patents on software, as it pretty much is pointless.

tzs 9y ago

There have been a few comments on whether or not the MIT license includes an implicit patent license, or is just a copyright license. It should be noted that there is nothing in the MIT license that actually says it is a copyright license. Here is what it grants you permission to do: > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions It is giving you permission to "deal in the Software". What that means is not defined but it gives several examples that it includes: use, copy, modify, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies. Several of those, including use, copy, sell copies and maybe distribute, are things that require patent permission if the software is patented. The plain language of the license says that you have permission to do those things, and the only way you can have that permission is if you have a patent license, so I don't see how a court could read the license as not including a patent grant if the licensor has patents that cover it.

jayajay 9y ago

It's nice being one of those people who wasn't using React because of its strange licensing. Facebook has its history. Now I can say it's really good to see that Facebook make the right call. I will still not be using React. It's just too heavy, same order of magnitude as jQuery.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mannanali413 9y ago

For me the takeaway was getting familiar with the various licensing systems. Going forward, I think I would be giving heed to the license a particular OSS carries with it before using it for production level development.