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> The license… will terminate… for anyone that [claims] infringement of any patent… by Facebook… whether or not such claim is related to the Software. > The l

by burke 12y ago

> The license… will terminate… for anyone that [claims] infringement of any patent… by Facebook… whether or not such claim is related to the Software. > The license… will terminate… for anyone that [claims] infringement of any patent… by any party if such claim arises… from any software, product or service of Facebook. > The license… will terminate… for anyone that [claims] infringement of any patent… by any party relating to the Software. > The license… will terminate… for anyone that [claims] that any right in any patent claim of Facebook is invalid or unenforceable. Wow.

MollyR 12y ago
That is a big excitement killer
- iheart2code 12y ago
  So, basically, if you sue Facebook on grounds of patent/copyright infringement for any reason, you don't get to use their software?
  - burke 12y ago
    Yes, and the license could easily be construed to imply that your license is immediately revoked if you tweet "Facebook infringes on patents".
  - krschultz 12y ago
    That plus you accept that all of Facebook's patents are valid.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    No, it doesn't mean that. It means that you lose the additional license to use any of Facebook's patents that may cover React. These may or may not exist.
    - emodendroket 12y ago
      Then why say "whether or not such claim is related to the Software?" That would imply just the opposite to me.
      - geofft 12y ago
        That clause relates to the patents you own that you're suing Facebook over, not the patents Facebook owns that they're (no longer) granting you a license to. As an example, say Facebook owns patent 1234567 "Method and system for reacting natively". Google owns 7654321 "High-density computers in a data center". Google builds the new Maps app using React Native. This would infringe 1234567, except that React Native comes with a patent grant, so the Maps app is properly licensed. Then Google sues Facebook over Open Compute Project, claiming infringement of patent 7654321. This has nothing to do with React Native, but Google has just lost its license to 1234567. So Facebook now gets to sue Google over the Maps app. (More likely, Facebook will threaten to sue in order to force a settlement for the other lawsuit.)
        emodendroket 12y ago
        Well, OK, fair, but for practical purposes it seems like the same thing.
    - loceng 12y ago
      You keep making definitive statements. Are you saying that you can keep using React Native if your patent rights are waived? That'd only be the case of those patents don't exist - but even then Facebook is stockpiling patents related to everything connected with social networks. Also, they'll likely be patenting whatever they can out of this technology, whether it's valid or not, you'd have to fight any action that Facebook holds against you - in the meantime invalidating everything, allowing Facebook to sue you for violating potentially dozens of patents; most everyone can't afford a lawsuit. Facebook open sourcing all of these things is purely a power play, and not trying to contribute to the developer community. The power that this is going to allow Facebook to leverage in the future could get really nasty - it's why Google isn't using any of it.
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    No, the license terminates when you make a claim (of which a lawsuit is a subset of) that any 'right' of any patent claim that Facebook makes is invalid or unenforceable. This would include statements to the effect: "That Facebook patent is invalid." or "Software patents are invalid."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
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- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  No, in no way does it mean that.
  - UUMMUU 12y ago
    Well thanks for the clarification.
    - geofft 12y ago
      Hope you saw my comment above, which tried to be a bit more clear.
- astrange 12y ago
  No, but it does say "you agree any kind of claim we make is true".
angersock 12y ago
but without patents nobody would ever make progress in software and innovation would be stifled
- geofft 12y ago
  Even if we assume that to be true, the fourth of those statements still sucks. No free software license denies use to people who have the wrong political views. If you manage to get software patents outlawed in one jurisdiction, your patent license expires in all other jurisdictions. Imagine how much the FSF would love to have a clause saying, if you weaken the GPL in court, your license to use any GPL software expires... but they don't. And even if we assume that to be true and assume that both parties believe in patents want a robust, well-functioning software patent system, that clause still sucks. If Facebook and I both invent something at roughly the same time and apply for patents, and the Patent Office misreads our applications and grants them both, and I point this out to them and I had priority (thereby invalidating some of Facebook's claims), Facebook gets to terminate all my patent licenses.
geofft 12y ago
(Someone had a post asking a good question about what this means. It got downvoted and deleted, which I think is unfortunate for a community that cares about learning about the world around it, so I'm replying here.) There are two separate kinds of legal protection at issue here, copyright and patent. The only thing that's close to covering ideas is patent law, not copyright law. (I'm assuming US law here, since that's where Facebook and I both are, but most of this is generally true I think.) Copyright covers a creative expression, and is automatic. If I write a story, paint a picture, compose a song, or code a program, copyright secures my ability to commercialize that creative work as I see fit. If someone else writes a similar story, paints a similar picture, etc. but does not use my words or notes or lines of code, they aren't infringing my "copy right", because they're not copying my work. Patents cover inventions, and are very non-automatic and best acquired with lawyers. Their term is also much shorter (about a decade, instead of about a century). US law currently lets you patent an algorithm or an arrangement of computer systems, under the artifice that you're actually patenting the implementation of that algorithm on any physical computers. Patents are issued for the invention, not for a specific implementation, and any implementation that works the same way infringes the patent. (Trademarks, for reference, cover names used in advertising, i.e., "trade marks". They're somewhat automatic, they only cover names, and they're not very often relevant to F/OSS licenses.) Traditionally, F/OSS licenses have been primarily concerned with copyright, partly because several of them were written when software copyrights were well-acknowledged and enforced, but when software patents were rare or nonexistent. This leaves you in the unfortunate situation where e.g. Facebook can write some code (automatically gaining a copyright), get a patent on the idea, open-source the code, and then sue you for patent infringement despite your copyright license. To avoid that, Facebook has an explicit patent grant in addition to the copyright license. (Although, as other commenters have pointed out, F/OSS licenses that don't specifically restrict themselves to copyright can potentially be read as a implicit patent grant if you stare at it hard enough.) At no point in this does Facebook claim ownership of your work. Certainly your idea isn't legally owned by anyone, either you or by Facebook, if you haven't gotten a patent on it. Facebook's patents remain Facebook's patents, with or without this clause. Because patents cover any implementation of an invention (whether or not the implementor knew about the patent), and because patents are in stupidly dense legalese, it's super common for people to be inadvertently infringing a bunch of patents. The traditional solution for this is that large companies have defensive patent portfolios in a sort of mutually-assured-destruction scenario: if Facebook sues Google over a patent, Google will countersue over all the patents they have. So there's an armistice, at least among big companies. The explicit patent grant weakens that, because now Google can just incorporate parts of React into their React-competitor, and Facebook loses a patent from their defensive portfolio. So a few clauses like these are normal: you get a patent grant from Facebook, as long as you don't sue Facebook over (different) patent infringement. This maintains the armistice between big companies, and it's also great for the little guy, who wasn't going to sue anyway because they don't have any/many patents (but also doesn't have a defensive portfolio because they don't have any/many patents). These clauses only cover claims of patent infringement, which are the thing that everyone is unintentionally doing en masse, not copyright infringement, which is much harder to do unintentionally, so they're pretty fair. But the fourth clause is super weird. It means that you can't dismantle any of Facebook's patents by e.g. providing prior art, without losing your patent license. It might even mean you can't lobby for software patent reform. It solely holds up Facebook's patent portfolio and the armistice between big companies. Usually dismantling patents is a good thing for everyone, because it's disarmament, and it's unfortunate this license doesn't extend to people who do that. (IANAL, TINLA, corrections graciously appreciated.)

by burke 12y ago

MollyR 12y ago

That is a big excitement killer

iheart2code 12y ago
So, basically, if you sue Facebook on grounds of patent/copyright infringement for any reason, you don't get to use their software?
- burke 12y ago
  Yes, and the license could easily be construed to imply that your license is immediately revoked if you tweet "Facebook infringes on patents".
- krschultz 12y ago
  That plus you accept that all of Facebook's patents are valid.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  No, it doesn't mean that. It means that you lose the additional license to use any of Facebook's patents that may cover React. These may or may not exist.
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    Then why say "whether or not such claim is related to the Software?" That would imply just the opposite to me.
    - geofft 12y ago
      That clause relates to the patents you own that you're suing Facebook over, not the patents Facebook owns that they're (no longer) granting you a license to. As an example, say Facebook owns patent 1234567 "Method and system for reacting natively". Google owns 7654321 "High-density computers in a data center". Google builds the new Maps app using React Native. This would infringe 1234567, except that React Native comes with a patent grant, so the Maps app is properly licensed. Then Google sues Facebook over Open Compute Project, claiming infringement of patent 7654321. This has nothing to do with React Native, but Google has just lost its license to 1234567. So Facebook now gets to sue Google over the Maps app. (More likely, Facebook will threaten to sue in order to force a settlement for the other lawsuit.)
      - emodendroket 12y ago
        Well, OK, fair, but for practical purposes it seems like the same thing.
  - loceng 12y ago
    You keep making definitive statements. Are you saying that you can keep using React Native if your patent rights are waived? That'd only be the case of those patents don't exist - but even then Facebook is stockpiling patents related to everything connected with social networks. Also, they'll likely be patenting whatever they can out of this technology, whether it's valid or not, you'd have to fight any action that Facebook holds against you - in the meantime invalidating everything, allowing Facebook to sue you for violating potentially dozens of patents; most everyone can't afford a lawsuit. Facebook open sourcing all of these things is purely a power play, and not trying to contribute to the developer community. The power that this is going to allow Facebook to leverage in the future could get really nasty - it's why Google isn't using any of it.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  No, the license terminates when you make a claim (of which a lawsuit is a subset of) that any 'right' of any patent claim that Facebook makes is invalid or unenforceable. This would include statements to the effect: "That Facebook patent is invalid." or "Software patents are invalid."
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

matthewmacleod 12y ago
No, in no way does it mean that.
- UUMMUU 12y ago
  Well thanks for the clarification.
  - geofft 12y ago
    Hope you saw my comment above, which tried to be a bit more clear.
astrange 12y ago
No, but it does say "you agree any kind of claim we make is true".

angersock 12y ago

but without patents nobody would ever make progress in software and innovation would be stifled

geofft 12y ago
Even if we assume that to be true, the fourth of those statements still sucks. No free software license denies use to people who have the wrong political views. If you manage to get software patents outlawed in one jurisdiction, your patent license expires in all other jurisdictions. Imagine how much the FSF would love to have a clause saying, if you weaken the GPL in court, your license to use any GPL software expires... but they don't. And even if we assume that to be true and assume that both parties believe in patents want a robust, well-functioning software patent system, that clause still sucks. If Facebook and I both invent something at roughly the same time and apply for patents, and the Patent Office misreads our applications and grants them both, and I point this out to them and I had priority (thereby invalidating some of Facebook's claims), Facebook gets to terminate all my patent licenses.

geofft 12y ago

(Someone had a post asking a good question about what this means. It got downvoted and deleted, which I think is unfortunate for a community that cares about learning about the world around it, so I'm replying here.) There are two separate kinds of legal protection at issue here, copyright and patent. The only thing that's close to covering ideas is patent law, not copyright law. (I'm assuming US law here, since that's where Facebook and I both are, but most of this is generally true I think.) Copyright covers a creative expression, and is automatic. If I write a story, paint a picture, compose a song, or code a program, copyright secures my ability to commercialize that creative work as I see fit. If someone else writes a similar story, paints a similar picture, etc. but does not use my words or notes or lines of code, they aren't infringing my "copy right", because they're not copying my work. Patents cover inventions, and are very non-automatic and best acquired with lawyers. Their term is also much shorter (about a decade, instead of about a century). US law currently lets you patent an algorithm or an arrangement of computer systems, under the artifice that you're actually patenting the implementation of that algorithm on any physical computers. Patents are issued for the invention, not for a specific implementation, and any implementation that works the same way infringes the patent. (Trademarks, for reference, cover names used in advertising, i.e., "trade marks". They're somewhat automatic, they only cover names, and they're not very often relevant to F/OSS licenses.) Traditionally, F/OSS licenses have been primarily concerned with copyright, partly because several of them were written when software copyrights were well-acknowledged and enforced, but when software patents were rare or nonexistent. This leaves you in the unfortunate situation where e.g. Facebook can write some code (automatically gaining a copyright), get a patent on the idea, open-source the code, and then sue you for patent infringement despite your copyright license. To avoid that, Facebook has an explicit patent grant in addition to the copyright license. (Although, as other commenters have pointed out, F/OSS licenses that don't specifically restrict themselves to copyright can potentially be read as a implicit patent grant if you stare at it hard enough.) At no point in this does Facebook claim ownership of your work. Certainly your idea isn't legally owned by anyone, either you or by Facebook, if you haven't gotten a patent on it. Facebook's patents remain Facebook's patents, with or without this clause. Because patents cover any implementation of an invention (whether or not the implementor knew about the patent), and because patents are in stupidly dense legalese, it's super common for people to be inadvertently infringing a bunch of patents. The traditional solution for this is that large companies have defensive patent portfolios in a sort of mutually-assured-destruction scenario: if Facebook sues Google over a patent, Google will countersue over all the patents they have. So there's an armistice, at least among big companies. The explicit patent grant weakens that, because now Google can just incorporate parts of React into their React-competitor, and Facebook loses a patent from their defensive portfolio. So a few clauses like these are normal: you get a patent grant from Facebook, as long as you don't sue Facebook over (different) patent infringement. This maintains the armistice between big companies, and it's also great for the little guy, who wasn't going to sue anyway because they don't have any/many patents (but also doesn't have a defensive portfolio because they don't have any/many patents). These clauses only cover claims of patent infringement, which are the thing that everyone is unintentionally doing en masse, not copyright infringement, which is much harder to do unintentionally, so they're pretty fair. But the fourth clause is super weird. It means that you can't dismantle any of Facebook's patents by e.g. providing prior art, without losing your patent license. It might even mean you can't lobby for software patent reform. It solely holds up Facebook's patent portfolio and the armistice between big companies. Usually dismantling patents is a good thing for everyone, because it's disarmament, and it's unfortunate this license doesn't extend to people who do that. (IANAL, TINLA, corrections graciously appreciated.)