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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
      With the old patents license, you had to be the one to initiate patent litigation with Facebook. The odds of needing to and wanting to get into patent litigation with Facebook are way less than 1%. That's an irrational fear. If something has a 1:100,000 chance of impacting you...I dunno man, when it comes to startups I can think of 1000 other things more likely to affect you. Companies that didn't even have patents were getting up in arms about this. It was quite a bit of irrational FUD. Even Wordpress's lawyer didn't have a problem with the license. They were just tired of fending off the FUD from their user base.
      - irrational 9y ago
        I don't work for a startup. I work for a Fortune 150 company with nearly 100,000 employees.
  - wmccullough 9y ago
    I love HN, and I hate to risk my account, but I'm tired of responses like this. You're being an asswipe. There is no reason for you to respond this way. The lens upon which you view the world must be pretty god damned shallow to make these kinds of statements. If you want to be a fuckstick and reply like this, please find another community.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - corndoge 9y ago
      Something about pots and kettles, and a plank in one's eye...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - BubbasDad 9y ago
      Agreed. Thank you for saying something.
    - abiox 9y ago
      i hope you're willing to say what the problem is, rather than simply name-calling.
    - dang 9y ago
      If you love HN, you shouldn't be damaging it like this. Every time an established user behaves badly they give license (pun intended) to new users to degrade the site further. That's seriously not cool, regardless of how wrong some other commenter was. The last way we want people to be defending HN, even against perceived assholes, is by being assholes themselves. Would it really have cost you to make your point substantively?
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      I guess I can adjust my tone. I have never heard of a startup being turned down for acquisition due to their front end framework of choice, but that became a fear that was legitimately passed around over React. It was irrational, in my opinion.
  - hnbroseph 9y ago
    apparently concern trolling really can change the world!
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    You're right that this ultimately may only be relevant in a tiny number of cases, but there's no reason to take the risk that your case will be one of the unlucky ones. There are plenty of good React alternatives that don't carry that risk.
jhgg 9y ago
I doubt it was related. The wheels to get this in motion must have started months in advanced, probably around the time ASF started advising against this license (labeling at as Category-X [1]) [1] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
- gibrown 9y ago
  They had doubled down on their licensing decision on Aug 18th specifically citing Apache: https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r... This is very clearly a response to WordPress. Nicely played Matt.
- ploxiln 9y ago
  It was only a month ago that Facebook re-confirmed its commitment to its patent license: https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841
- lelandbatey 9y ago
  In a statement from Facebook on August 18th, 33 days ago[0]: We have considered possible changes carefully, but we won't be changing our default license or React's license at this time. We recognize that we may lose some React community members because of this decision. We are sorry for that, but we need to balance our desire to participate in open source with our desire to protect ourselves from costly litigation. Given that they apparently didn't think it was a big enough deal then, and what changed was Wordpress, I don't think it's incorrect to give them some credit. [0] - https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...
  - jhgg 9y ago
    If I had to speculate, I'd suspect that even though they reaffirmed the BSD+Patent license publicly, FB probably started exploring the possibility of relicensing the projects shortly after that. Not to say WP saying they wont use react didn't help, but I don't think it was the "tipping" point for them at all. Legal matters at big companies generally take months to resolve and come to consensus over. I can easily imagine their legal team evaluating all such scenarios that a change in license could hurt them (as they should), and that kind of research isn't something done in haste.
batmansmk 9y ago
Agreed. Wordpress helped making it happen faster that's for sure.
dsacco 9y ago
Sorry, I'm confused, can you help me understand that blog post? I'm getting three messages from it: 1. We like React a lot with or without the license. 2. It's not our job to convince the world React's patent license is fine. 3. We're substantially moving away from React, including large rewrites. ...why are they moving away from React? I'm confused, do they believe using React implicitly supports it? They're already vocally supporting it. I don't have an opinion or a dog in the race with regards to the React and patent license drama, but I legitimately don't understand why this blog post (or the underlying decisions) was written. In my opinion it feels like a huge deal to decide to rewrite a piece of production software, especially if you like the software already. So what am I missing? Are they concerned that people won't use WordPress because it has React components? Does React's BSD + Patents license extend downstream like that? EDIT: Thank you for downvoting me twice for asking an honest question folks...
- debaserab2 9y ago
  FTA: > I think Facebook’s clause is actually clearer than many other approaches companies could take, and Facebook has been one of the better open source contributors out there. But we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook’s patent clause is fine isn’t ours to take on. It’s their fight. My interpretation is that due to the negative publicity that Facebook has garnered with their license, they didn't want to scare people away from using/building on top of their platform by using their library even though they themselves did not have a problem with the license. It's understandable how that might be the final straw for Facebook when even people who don't have a problem with their license won't use their libraries for that reason.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    Thanks for that clarification. I interpreted that paragraph to be somewhat contradictory (“we like this but we’re moving away from it because it’s not our job to convince people it’s fine”). Your interpretation makes more sense and provides better color to it.
    - 9y ago
samirillian 9y ago
Though I am a bit curious about why WordPress would need React in the first place. It's not like they're building a real-time app. Am I missing something here?
- claudiulodro 9y ago
  But they are building a real-time app![1] The new Gutenberg editor is going to be much more dynamic than the old editor. https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-avai...
- bigbassroller 9y ago
  Wordpress has a pretty good JSON api that you can use with crud operations: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ There's also already a theme that uses React: https://themes.redradar.net/foxhound/ https://themes.redradar.net/foxhound/ With those two things you could build a pretty good web app. The only thing is you'd be in WordPress land and isn't glamorous.
  - rmccue 9y ago
    > Wordpress has a pretty good JSON api that you can use with crud operations: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ FYI: this shipped in WordPress 4.7 as part of the core software, and is now available on every WordPress site. (e.g. https://www.wired.com/wp-json/ https://www.wired.com/wp-json/) > The only thing is you'd be in WordPress land and isn't glamorous. We tried to shield REST API users from much of the nastiness of WordPress' backwards compatibility (inconsistent field naming, date weirdness, etc), but yeah, it's still not perfect. (I'm the co-lead on the REST API focus, happy to answer any Qs!)
    - OtterCoder 9y ago
      Hey, I'm not a WP user, but I'm a huge fan of the work you guys do, and the impact you have. WP has done so much to bring the power of the web to the people. No questions, just thanks. :)
pasbesoin 9y ago
So, Facebook knuckled under to increasingly intense public and commercial pressure. In this instance. I don't think they should be particularly rewarded for this. I think we should keep in mind what it took to get to this point. And that, absent such pressure, individual organizations and people, and perhaps our collective society, remain at their... "mercy?" Remain under their thumb. Whether that thumb presses down this year. Or next. Or... we just don't know. In other words, I'd remain cautious about whether and how far I move under their umbrella -- tech-wise, or other.
optimuspaul 9y ago
Thank them for what? I don't get it. It sounds to me that they just ran away from the problem. The problem in my eyes being software patents not the BSD+Patents license. But sure, thanks for being weenies.

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
    With the old patents license, you had to be the one to initiate patent litigation with Facebook. The odds of needing to and wanting to get into patent litigation with Facebook are way less than 1%. That's an irrational fear. If something has a 1:100,000 chance of impacting you...I dunno man, when it comes to startups I can think of 1000 other things more likely to affect you. Companies that didn't even have patents were getting up in arms about this. It was quite a bit of irrational FUD. Even Wordpress's lawyer didn't have a problem with the license. They were just tired of fending off the FUD from their user base.
    - irrational 9y ago
      I don't work for a startup. I work for a Fortune 150 company with nearly 100,000 employees.
- wmccullough 9y ago
  I love HN, and I hate to risk my account, but I'm tired of responses like this. You're being an asswipe. There is no reason for you to respond this way. The lens upon which you view the world must be pretty god damned shallow to make these kinds of statements. If you want to be a fuckstick and reply like this, please find another community.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - corndoge 9y ago
    Something about pots and kettles, and a plank in one's eye...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - BubbasDad 9y ago
    Agreed. Thank you for saying something.
  - abiox 9y ago
    i hope you're willing to say what the problem is, rather than simply name-calling.
  - dang 9y ago
    If you love HN, you shouldn't be damaging it like this. Every time an established user behaves badly they give license (pun intended) to new users to degrade the site further. That's seriously not cool, regardless of how wrong some other commenter was. The last way we want people to be defending HN, even against perceived assholes, is by being assholes themselves. Would it really have cost you to make your point substantively?
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    I guess I can adjust my tone. I have never heard of a startup being turned down for acquisition due to their front end framework of choice, but that became a fear that was legitimately passed around over React. It was irrational, in my opinion.
- hnbroseph 9y ago
  apparently concern trolling really can change the world!
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  You're right that this ultimately may only be relevant in a tiny number of cases, but there's no reason to take the risk that your case will be one of the unlucky ones. There are plenty of good React alternatives that don't carry that risk.

jhgg 9y ago

I doubt it was related. The wheels to get this in motion must have started months in advanced, probably around the time ASF started advising against this license (labeling at as Category-X [1]) [1] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x

gibrown 9y ago
They had doubled down on their licensing decision on Aug 18th specifically citing Apache: https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r... This is very clearly a response to WordPress. Nicely played Matt.
ploxiln 9y ago
It was only a month ago that Facebook re-confirmed its commitment to its patent license: https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15050841
lelandbatey 9y ago
In a statement from Facebook on August 18th, 33 days ago[0]: We have considered possible changes carefully, but we won't be changing our default license or React's license at this time. We recognize that we may lose some React community members because of this decision. We are sorry for that, but we need to balance our desire to participate in open source with our desire to protect ourselves from costly litigation. Given that they apparently didn't think it was a big enough deal then, and what changed was Wordpress, I don't think it's incorrect to give them some credit. [0] - https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-react-s-license/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/112130496157735/explaining-r...
- jhgg 9y ago
  If I had to speculate, I'd suspect that even though they reaffirmed the BSD+Patent license publicly, FB probably started exploring the possibility of relicensing the projects shortly after that. Not to say WP saying they wont use react didn't help, but I don't think it was the "tipping" point for them at all. Legal matters at big companies generally take months to resolve and come to consensus over. I can easily imagine their legal team evaluating all such scenarios that a change in license could hurt them (as they should), and that kind of research isn't something done in haste.

batmansmk 9y ago

Agreed. Wordpress helped making it happen faster that's for sure.

dsacco 9y ago

Sorry, I'm confused, can you help me understand that blog post? I'm getting three messages from it: 1. We like React a lot with or without the license. 2. It's not our job to convince the world React's patent license is fine. 3. We're substantially moving away from React, including large rewrites. ...why are they moving away from React? I'm confused, do they believe using React implicitly supports it? They're already vocally supporting it. I don't have an opinion or a dog in the race with regards to the React and patent license drama, but I legitimately don't understand why this blog post (or the underlying decisions) was written. In my opinion it feels like a huge deal to decide to rewrite a piece of production software, especially if you like the software already. So what am I missing? Are they concerned that people won't use WordPress because it has React components? Does React's BSD + Patents license extend downstream like that? EDIT: Thank you for downvoting me twice for asking an honest question folks...

debaserab2 9y ago
FTA: > I think Facebook’s clause is actually clearer than many other approaches companies could take, and Facebook has been one of the better open source contributors out there. But we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook’s patent clause is fine isn’t ours to take on. It’s their fight. My interpretation is that due to the negative publicity that Facebook has garnered with their license, they didn't want to scare people away from using/building on top of their platform by using their library even though they themselves did not have a problem with the license. It's understandable how that might be the final straw for Facebook when even people who don't have a problem with their license won't use their libraries for that reason.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Thanks for that clarification. I interpreted that paragraph to be somewhat contradictory (“we like this but we’re moving away from it because it’s not our job to convince people it’s fine”). Your interpretation makes more sense and provides better color to it.
  - 9y ago

samirillian 9y ago

Though I am a bit curious about why WordPress would need React in the first place. It's not like they're building a real-time app. Am I missing something here?

claudiulodro 9y ago
But they are building a real-time app![1] The new Gutenberg editor is going to be much more dynamic than the old editor. https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-avai...
bigbassroller 9y ago
Wordpress has a pretty good JSON api that you can use with crud operations: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ There's also already a theme that uses React: https://themes.redradar.net/foxhound/ https://themes.redradar.net/foxhound/ With those two things you could build a pretty good web app. The only thing is you'd be in WordPress land and isn't glamorous.
- rmccue 9y ago
  > Wordpress has a pretty good JSON api that you can use with crud operations: https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ https://wordpress.org/plugins/rest-api/ FYI: this shipped in WordPress 4.7 as part of the core software, and is now available on every WordPress site. (e.g. https://www.wired.com/wp-json/ https://www.wired.com/wp-json/) > The only thing is you'd be in WordPress land and isn't glamorous. We tried to shield REST API users from much of the nastiness of WordPress' backwards compatibility (inconsistent field naming, date weirdness, etc), but yeah, it's still not perfect. (I'm the co-lead on the REST API focus, happy to answer any Qs!)
  - OtterCoder 9y ago
    Hey, I'm not a WP user, but I'm a huge fan of the work you guys do, and the impact you have. WP has done so much to bring the power of the web to the people. No questions, just thanks. :)

pasbesoin 9y ago

So, Facebook knuckled under to increasingly intense public and commercial pressure. In this instance. I don't think they should be particularly rewarded for this. I think we should keep in mind what it took to get to this point. And that, absent such pressure, individual organizations and people, and perhaps our collective society, remain at their... "mercy?" Remain under their thumb. Whether that thumb presses down this year. Or next. Or... we just don't know. In other words, I'd remain cautious about whether and how far I move under their umbrella -- tech-wise, or other.

optimuspaul 9y ago

Thank them for what? I don't get it. It sounds to me that they just ran away from the problem. The problem in my eyes being software patents not the BSD+Patents license. But sure, thanks for being weenies.