4 ms·
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 thes
by 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 agoReact 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 agoBut 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 agoYou 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.