
Relicensing React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js - dwwoelfel
https://code.facebook.com/posts/300798627056246
======
kelnos
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.

~~~
spenczar5
The current state of things is that patents are stockpiled as deterrents, kind
of like nuclear weapons. All of the big companies know that if they sued one
another over some patent claim, the other side would retaliate, and it would
be a big mess with no real winners.

Facebook's patent clause disarms all their opponents, _but leaves them free to
attack._ It's actually a _wildly_ aggressive, offensive weapon, surprisingly -
just like how nuclear missile defense is one of the more provocative
technologies out there that possibly makes nuclear conflicts _more_ probably.

That's why it's totally unpalatable, at least at the big companies.

~~~
jaredklewis
It seems like people never get tired of not reading the PATENTS file. “Wildly
aggressive?” Please. The agreement explicitly forbids Facebook from revoking
your patent grant if they are the aggressor. Without the agreement (i.e. just
BSD) Facebook is free to sue you for patent infringement. They add a file that
says they can’t do that unless you sue them first and suddenly people are out
for blood. Salem 2.0.

~~~
slaymaker1907
Only over the React patents. They could, however, sue you over your VR system
or something but leave you little recourse due to not wanting to lose your
React/other FB patent grants.

~~~
jaredklewis
Nope. The PATENTS file specifically says that if Facebook initiates patent
litigation (related or unrelated to React) you can counter sue Facebook AND
keep your React patent grant.

"...if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates files a
lawsuit alleging patent infringement against you in the first instance, and
you respond by filing a patent infringement counterclaim in that lawsuit
against that party that is unrelated to the Software, the license granted
hereunder will not terminate under section (i) of this paragraph due to such
counterclaim."

~~~
lftl
The only legitimate criticism I've heard of the FB patent grant is that FB
could intentionally infringe your patents and the you couldn't sue them for
infringement without losing your React patent grant. It's such a narrow case
though that I seriously doubt it's a legitimate concern for most of the people
complaining about it.

~~~
dllthomas
And you can stop using React, then sue. Even if they also stop using your
patent, they were in violation when they used it. They can't retroactively put
_you_ in violation with their revocation.

Moreover, nothing is preventing you from informing them of your patent and
asking that they stop using it. If they continue to, it's clearly willful
infringement.

------
blaqkangel
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.

~~~
MikeHolman
>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.

~~~
matthewmacleod
There was no sign of an exodus. That’s ludicrously hyperbolic.

~~~
CydeWeys
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)

~~~
ng12
An HN thread with a dozen responses? Hardly an exodus.

~~~
davidgerard
A quarter of all websites? An exodus.

~~~
Rapzid
Those websites weren't leaving, they never arrived..

~~~
marksomnian
They were close to arriving but they backtracked, all 25% of them. I'd call
that an exodus before you even arrive.

~~~
madeofpalk
...of sites that posted on HN.

Projects that I work(ed) on that use React have no plans to switch away and
aren't represented in that 25%.

~~~
marksomnian
That's not what I meant.

25% of sites on the Internet run WordPress. WordPress was rewriting its editor
in React, but decided to switch away due to BSD+Patents.

~~~
madeofpalk
Right so even then, its a bit weird to say that 25% of sites decided to not go
with React, but actually 25% of sites (unknowingly) use software that decided
not to go with React.

~~~
rhizome
You're splitting hairs to reduce the significance of WP's stance.

~~~
ng12
No, he's not. He's pointing out that calling it an "exodus" implies that many
individual projects have decided to abandon React. In this context WordPress
is just one project, not "25% of all websites".

~~~
CydeWeys
WordPress _runs_ 25% of all websites. That is huge. You're trying to
trivialize it as being "just one project" when it's really one of the most
widely used and significant projects out there. One decision that WordPress
makes is worth tens of thousands of decisions from much smaller projects that
aren't used very widely. WordPress is a many billion dollar a year industry in
itself, and whether it uses React or not will directly contribute to many
thousands of web developers out there learning it or not.

~~~
epicide
You are trivializing the difference between "using" and "choosing". One is
transitive, the other is not.

~~~
CydeWeys
I'm saying that it doesn't much matter. WordPress is the largest player in the
web platform ecosystem. The choices they make have huge consequences. Them
choosing to use one library over another directly contributes to thousands of
more developers using that library. The choice doesn't need to be transitive
because developers using the platform don't have a choice of library -- they
go along with whatever the platform people are using.

~~~
ng12
Nobody is disagreeing with you, you're just talking about something different
than everyone else in this thread.

------
cies
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.

~~~
arca_vorago
I've been trying to tell everyone licensing is more important than they
realize, but there are so many people who fundamentally misunderstand
licensing and therefor just don't care (dwtfyw license for example), or have
falsely been trained by subpar instructors at uni and $othertraining about how
bsd/mit is the superior license for business because $reasons.

The four freedoms and free software solve so many of the problems I see around
modern tech-infrastructure. No, free software doesn't solve every issue and
has some of it's own, for example I think at the code complexity levels we are
at the many eyes theory is starting to crumble, but it doesn't change the core
truisms about freedom in computing that are important for us to move forward
in a free and open society if we actually want to start _solving prolems_.

Now that we have a concrete example of how picking tooling with bad licensing
can bite people in the butt, please take this time to at least consider GPL
varients (A/L/GPLv3) for as much of your tooling as you possibly can. (perhaps
CC0/CCBY/CCBYSA for content)

In my opinion, MIT/BSD licenses like FB moved to in this case simply aren't
good enough to be future-proof, primarily because of the ability of future
tivoization of a product that removes freedom from the user (think BSD on
playstation).

Remember, either the user controls the program, or the program controls the
user.

If the GPL scares you for some reason or you have question about it
(commercial sales of gpl software for example), feel free to ask. I've spent
enough time wading through just about every license so I think I might be able
to cut through some fud.

~~~
Bahamut
Are you a lawyer? If not, you would be doing a disservice to anyone curious
about the topic.

My own company's lawyers consider the GPLv3 toxic and not allowed at all for
company use in any software we create - that's enough for me.

~~~
arca_vorago
Usually it is the lawyers doing people a disservice actually. That said, Eben
Moglen is who I would refer you to. (Has been the lawyer for the FSF and RMS I
think)

Read the slide in the first few seconds. Does that look familiar to you?
[https://youtu.be/okEQt-Rla7o?t=863](https://youtu.be/okEQt-Rla7o?t=863)

~~~
mseebach
The lawyers who would actually have to put their neck on the line says no.
Eben Moglen is a campaigner, not anyone's lawyer (in the matter of defending a
software product including GNU licensed components). The license actually
isn't that long and the only argument on what it really means is going to take
place in a courtroom in a carefully chosen district in Texas in front of a
judge and jury that aren't quite comfortable operating 4-function pocket
calculators. (And the defendant, by the way, isn't going to be some wholesome
main street software outfit, it's going to be the nastiest, most ruthless gang
you can imagine. 90% of the software community is going to on the record
hating their living guts, you can bet Moglen, never mind RMS, is going to be
nowhere to be seen given an impassioned defense of the legality of this
company's use of GPLv3, regardless of how perfectly compatible it is with the
promises they make now (FSF will submit a brief, but they are going to be very
discreet about it). But the result will decide the legal interpretation of
GPLv3 forever.)

 _That_ is the mental image of your company's lawyers when you ask about
GPLv3.

This discussion sometimes feels like like the PHB telling Dilbert to go base
the product on Oracle because of an article in CIO Monthly ("written by an
EXPERT!") says it's the best database.

------
damosneeze
Thank you, Wordpress.[1]

[1] [https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/](https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-
react-and-wordpress/)

~~~
dsacco
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
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
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.

~~~
rhizome
Yes. The way I read it, Facebook essentially shirked the issue, regardless
whether it's only a perception problem, onto companies like Wordpress. WP has
their own users, it's not WP's job to do FB's work for them, and FB _has_ to
have known the patents clause was going to be problematic, or at least
controversial.

~~~
chrisco255
React has been out for 4 years now. This hasn't been this big of a deal. But I
guess at this point, React has hit critical mass, and it's sort of becoming a
standard for front end development, so the FUD hit fever pitch.

~~~
rhizome
You seem to have other issues with the controversy, but remember that the
impetus for discussion these days was the Apache Software Foundation not
accepting BSD+P as compatible with its policies.

------
maxton
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
> 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
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.

------
JamesFM
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?

~~~
nostrademons
Implied patent licenses:

[https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.a...](https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.aspx?NewsPubId=95535)

[https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-
guidech7.html](https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech7.html)

Basically, if you sell or license a product that requires a patent to work,
courts have generally held that you grant an _implied_ patent license for any
patents that the product might require. If you explicitly reference patents
within the license, however, then whatever terms you explicitly write into the
license supersede this implied patent license. BSD+patents (and Apache 2) have
explicit patent language; paradoxically, this makes them _more_ restrictive
than licenses like MIT, BSD, or GPL that don't mention patents at all.

~~~
tytso
Furthermore, suppose you're some company like, say, IBM which figured out some
way to say, safely double the energy density and recharge cycles of Lithium
Ion batteries, which you have patented. Let's also assume that you are
shipping some critical problem which is dependent on React. Facebook could now
freely use your patented idea, and violating it left, right, and center, and
if you try to sue them for violating that patent, you're completely f*cked.

So Facebook's idea works fine if you believe that Patents as a Thing are bad
(all patents, not just software patents), and should not be asserted under any
circumstances, and it's fine for Facebook to arbitrarily violate any patent of
any company who has become dependent on React.

~~~
skrebbel
> and if you try to sue them for violating that patent, you're completely
> f*cked.

No, if you try to sue them for violating that patent, they can try to sue you
for using React - if they actually have valid patents that cover React, that
is. I doubt IBM's lawyers are breaking a sweat.

Why do you keep spreading FUD about this stuff even after Facebook withdraws
the license?

~~~
madeofpalk
Furthermore, _this is all untested in the courts_. Contracts and laws aren't
really worth much until they're tested in courts. It's arguable that giving
someone a license to use your code also gives them a license to use the
patents that code uses. Kind of like how you're not infringing on iPhone
patents if you buy and use an iPhone.

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

~~~
CydeWeys
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.

~~~
sebastianmck
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.

~~~
CydeWeys
So the list of packages they're truly open sourcing is intentionally small,
then. They're only truly open sourcing the ones that are very popular and that
had a huge amount of outcry over the license. That makes it worse.

~~~
Kilenaitor
> That makes it worse.

In what way does re-licensing their most popular packages make it worse? It
says they're evaluating. Doesn't say no and as demonstrated here it doesn't
mean they wont change their mind later.

~~~
irrational
It creates continued uncertainty. If all the tools/libraries in the React
ecosystem (such as React Native) don't all have the license, then we will
probably stay the course with Vue. While Vue is amazing, React has a larger
ecosystem. But if that entire ecosystem isn't available due to licenses then
we might as well stick with Vue.

------
tzs
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.

------
adambrenecki
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
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
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

------
ianstormtaylor
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.

------
andrewingram
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
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
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
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.

------
pvinis
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
Except not all the pieces of the React ecosystem are changing license, so...
we'll probably end up staying with Vue.

~~~
danabramov
Which parts do you rely on that haven’t changed it?

~~~
irrational
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.

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

------
unwiredben
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)

------
electriclove
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
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
This can't be upvoted enough. At this point people are just looking for
excuses to hate React.

------
logandavis
> 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.

------
gcommer
> 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
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.

------
discordianfish
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?

~~~
carussell
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
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.

~~~
discordianfish
And doubt they are okay with using it now.

~~~
bachaco
Why wouldn't they?

~~~
discordianfish
Because facebook can sue them for violating their patents, now that they
removed the patents grant.

~~~
irrational
But they switched the license to MIT. We use tons of software with that
license and our lawyers are fine with it.

~~~
discordianfish
I don't know the reasons for your lawyers, it's possible I miss something here
but it looks to me like MIT+Patents-grant gives you _more_ right and _more_
protection.

Facebook can sue you anyway, no matter what the license is. The grant made it
impossible for facebook to sue you _unless_ you sue first. That's gone now.

------
addicted
Good move by Facebook. This is highly appreciated.

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

------
zengid
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!

------
philosopherlawr
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.

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

------
j_m_b
What about GraphQL?

~~~
adamkl
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
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.

------
0x0
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?

------
s73ver_
It sucks that it took this long, but at the end of the day, they've done the
right thing.

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

------
ramonfritsch
Nice move! If you guys are still having trouble understanding these licenses,
I recommend: [https://choosealicense.com/](https://choosealicense.com/)

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

~~~
ngrilly
Yes, it is:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_othe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses)

------
anonyfox
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
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.

------
ZenoArrow
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).

------
vinniejames
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

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

------
igl
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.

------
johnhenry
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.

------
valarauca1
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
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
It doesn’t.

This is BSD/MIT is consider a _bad_ license if you want to convert patent
concerns.

~~~
JoshMnem
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.

------
jayajay
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.

------
foo101
Why didn't Facebook just choose the Apache license that has patent clause and
is a standard license?

~~~
jhasse
Maybe because it's incompatible with the GPLv2.

------
zxia31
I am so excited about this news and even register a hacker news account to
appreciate FB's behavior.

------
mannanali413
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.

------
LibertyBeta
Does any one know if this means react native is moving as well?

Cause I might consider a move now.

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

------
LeoNatan25
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?

~~~
Sacho
Why would Facebook sue for copyright infringement? Suing them for patent
infringement doesn't invalidate the copyright - not for BSD+PATENTS, and
certainly not for MIT. Your scenario doesn't make sense.

~~~
LeoNatan25
What exactly doesn’t make sense? What in the theoretical scenario do you not
understand?

Here is the scenario without the … emotional baggage:

——

Company _X_ has patent _P_.

Company _X_ releases open source _O_ which provides implementation of patent
_P_.

There is no patent grant in the license of open source _O_.

Company _Y_ uses open source _O_.

——

Can company _X_ sue company _Y_ for infringement of patent _P_? I think the
answer to this is “yes”.

~~~
detaro
I think they were nitpicking your choice of words. "copyright infringement" is
not the same as infringing on a patent.

~~~
LeoNatan25
Right, sorry. I meant “patent infringement”, of course.

------
sneak
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.

------
a13n
Long live vue's chance at market domination!

~~~
chrisco255
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.

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

------
obilgic
There was a graphql Patent grant issue as well.

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

~~~
foota
Edit: figured it out.

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

~~~
ngrilly
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_othe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License#Comparison_to_other_licenses)

------
marenkay
... 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.

------
sergiotapia
>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
> 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
Most of React's competitors are licensed MIT I'm curious what you think folks
should switch to.

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

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

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

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

~~~
chrisco255
They should have done this a month ago.

~~~
irrational
They should have done this a year ago - before my company settled on Vue.

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

------
awalton
Death to asymmetrical patent clauses! Huge victory for OSS.

~~~
jonny_eh
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.

~~~
0xbear
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
Literally not true. You’d just revert to BSD if you sued.

So same protection as now.

~~~
jjnoakes
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
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
Right, if they were equal grants, I would too. But they aren't, that's the
point.

~~~
abritinthebay
It's a principled stand for sure, and I can respect that, but it also means
that _in practice_ you get less protection.

Like, I'd love to live in a world where patent protection wasn't even an issue
but we don't. So in this situation we end up with less protection due to
compatibility concerns.

Given we do live in a world where software patents are valuable to companies
and they won't all want to give blanket irrevocable licenses... there has to
be a way for business to do that _and_ protect users of the software.

The patent grant FB did was a (flawed) attempt at that.

~~~
jjnoakes
Not sure how the topic veered; this thread was about the difference between
BSD+Patents - Patents vs MIT and the two being less equal (in my opinion) than
first posited, because the +Patents and -Patents don't cancel out to equal the
implicit patent grant of MIT.

Even if you believe the implicit grant to be weak, or Facebook's Patent grant
to be better than an implicit grant, the above discussion stands independently
of those things.

------
wwweston
> 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?

------
shaohua
Thank you. This is the right thing to do.

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

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

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

------
akras14
Kudos to FB

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

------
wdfx
:O

Never thought this would happen

------
bobpappas
Very good news!

------
neilwilson
Still think software patents are a defensible idea?

------
whatever_dude
"I'm sorry you're mad"

------
tvalentius
This is a great news, Thanks Facebook.

------
yuvalkarmi
Finally!

------
amigoingtodie
Somebody wants to run for president.

------
consto
Good job facebook

------
1111bradybunch1
facebook.com

------
markyuckerberg
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
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
Maybe in 2 years. I don't know about soon.

------
yahna
Does MIT licensing fix the patent issue?

Why not just go with BSD and drop the problematic patent clauses?

------
0xbear
Why not Apache 2.0 though? That would have been a logical choice.

~~~
liuliu
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.

~~~
abritinthebay
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
> 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
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.

------
free_everybody
Good look for Facebook

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

------
amelius
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.

------
maxpert
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.

------
halfnibble
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.

