<story><title>Facebook React.js License</title><url>http://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Facebook-Reactjs-License</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lucb1e</author><text>The way I read it, it&amp;#x27;s not evil.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a known and deliberate shortcoming of many licenses (e.g. BSD) not to include patent stuff because it makes everything unnecessarily complex. There was recently an article about why BSD and MIT are so popular, and it&amp;#x27;s because they&amp;#x27;re concise and understandable. There is a reason WTFPL exists and some developers resort to it as a way to avoid legalese.&lt;p&gt;Facebook clearly was aware of this &amp;quot;shortcoming&amp;quot; and being a big player, they might have wanted to be nice and say &amp;quot;we won&amp;#x27;t sue you for patent infringement if it turns out we have a patent on something React does&amp;quot;. Then the managers went &amp;quot;but what if they sue us? Patents are not only for offense but also our defense, we would weaken our defense.&amp;quot; And so the clause of &amp;quot;except if you sue us first&amp;quot; came into being.&lt;p&gt;And now this fuss about the patent part making it not an open source license? Oh come on.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t like Facebook as a company, but this bickering is silly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>erichocean</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;The way I read it, it&amp;#x27;s not evil.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No, it&amp;#x27;s evil, full stop.&lt;p&gt;Facebook&amp;#x27;s patent policy means, in no uncertain terms: if you have a patent, they have a worldwide, royalty-free right to use it. Don&amp;#x27;t want to give them that? Well, until you remove all usage of Facebook&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;open source&amp;quot; code, that&amp;#x27;s the situation.&lt;p&gt;Note: RocksDB also has this problem, which means CockroachDB is also infected. Tread carefully.&lt;p&gt;-----&lt;p&gt;Note to downvoters: No one has a problem with Apache 2-style patent-retaliation provisions. Facebook could solve this problem TODAY by switching to that.&lt;p&gt;They don&amp;#x27;t because they don&amp;#x27;t want to retaliate, they want access to unrelated patents from third-parties at zero cost, with a credible threat to damage those third-parties if they want to retain their unrelated patent rights. There&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;literally&lt;/i&gt; no other reason for Facebook to demand terms beyond Apache 2 than to do what I just described.&lt;p&gt;The Apache 2 license protects Facebook and third-parties and is 100% ethical. Facebook&amp;#x27;s patent position is not, for the reasons I&amp;#x27;ve stated above. The community, IMO, should shun Facebook LOUDLY until they relent and stop this bullshit.&lt;p&gt;-----&lt;p&gt;Update 2: It&amp;#x27;s actually worse, because Facebook tends to do this bullshit on stuff like RocksDB and React which are &lt;i&gt;incorporated&lt;/i&gt; in other software that you use to run your business.&lt;p&gt;Using a React-based dashboard widget for your ElasticSearch cluster? Good luck suing Facebook for patent-infringement, because guess what? &lt;i&gt;You agreed to let them infringe by using it&lt;/i&gt;, even though you didn&amp;#x27;t intend to.&lt;p&gt;Facebook&amp;#x27;s patent policy requires &lt;i&gt;constant&lt;/i&gt; policing to avoid. Like I said: EVIL.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook React.js License</title><url>http://www.elcaminolegal.com/single-post/2016/10/04/Facebook-Reactjs-License</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lucb1e</author><text>The way I read it, it&amp;#x27;s not evil.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a known and deliberate shortcoming of many licenses (e.g. BSD) not to include patent stuff because it makes everything unnecessarily complex. There was recently an article about why BSD and MIT are so popular, and it&amp;#x27;s because they&amp;#x27;re concise and understandable. There is a reason WTFPL exists and some developers resort to it as a way to avoid legalese.&lt;p&gt;Facebook clearly was aware of this &amp;quot;shortcoming&amp;quot; and being a big player, they might have wanted to be nice and say &amp;quot;we won&amp;#x27;t sue you for patent infringement if it turns out we have a patent on something React does&amp;quot;. Then the managers went &amp;quot;but what if they sue us? Patents are not only for offense but also our defense, we would weaken our defense.&amp;quot; And so the clause of &amp;quot;except if you sue us first&amp;quot; came into being.&lt;p&gt;And now this fuss about the patent part making it not an open source license? Oh come on.&lt;p&gt;I really don&amp;#x27;t like Facebook as a company, but this bickering is silly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmayle</author><text>I agree with you, but I understand the issue being raised.  The way I see this, the issue breaks down three ways (not chronologically):&lt;p&gt;1) Facebook publishes open source software, that everyone is free to use under copyright law.  Everyone agrees this is a good thing.&lt;p&gt;2) The copyrighted software also includes the use of patented inventions, Facebook adds a patent license to assert that there are no submarine patents (that Facebook is not using copyleft as a means to setup future patent trolling).  Everyone agrees this is a good thing.&lt;p&gt;3) The patent license is worded in such a way that it sets up a sort of &amp;#x27;patentleft&amp;#x27;.  Facebook is asserting not only that it&amp;#x27;s patents are defensive, but that there&amp;#x27;s a license which guarantees it.  This license works kind of like copyleft does, though maybe with less precision (at the organizational level).  It asserts that if your organization is using patentleft inventions, then by definition, all inventions that come from your organization are derivative works.  Unlike Apple&amp;#x27;s open source license, the guarantees provided by patentleft have no bearing on your rights under copyleft.  Not everyone agrees this is a good thing.&lt;p&gt;For patentleft, some people work in organizations that wish to split their efforts into those benefit from patentleft, from those that don&amp;#x27;t, like they currently can with copyleft.  In the case of copyleft, it&amp;#x27;s a lot easier to detect infringement (does this code use copyrighted code).  At the patent level, not only is it more difficult to tell, but the litigation around it is more difficult to settle.&lt;p&gt;I personally think that patents and copyrights, when done right, add value to society, but that current laws aren&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;done right&amp;quot;.  Further, I think that copyleft and patentleft exist because of flaws in the existing system of patents and copyrights, are made to fix them, and I fully support that.&lt;p&gt;* Disclaimer * I am currently a Facebook employee, though my views don&amp;#x27;t necessarily represent those of the company.  I wasn&amp;#x27;t an employee when the license was created, and I have no work involvement either in the license, or in software covered under the license.  When the second&amp;#x2F;third clauses were added, I was a Google employee worried about the effects of these clauses.</text></comment>