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My point was not about the details, but about the uncertain nature of an open source project driven by a company. The patent issue is just one of the "symptoms" of this problem. When someone open sources their technology and adds a set of detailed clauses that adds some restriction (doesn't matter if it's a "real" restriction or not), it means they couldn't go all out. It also means as a user, you do have reasons to be cautious about it, not because of what the license says in detail, but because of the reason behind the behavior.

But anyway, this patent issue is just one part of the larger issue, which is uncertainty. When Apple or Android changes the API policy in the future, you'll be struggling to adapt to the new reality with what you have. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't. Currently it does make sense for some people to build using react native, but if I were you, I would rather learn Android. Really, if you already have iOS experience, a lot of the paradigm is pretty similar and it won't be super difficult to learn.

This "cross platform" concept used to be valuable maybe in 2010 when it wasn't clear what mobile platforms would be dominant (with windows phones, blackberries, and even samsung launching their own developer platforms). But it's 2016 now, and we're pretty sure it's either iOS or Android. All you need is just those two platforms.

> pretty sure it's either iOS or Android.

it's web, android, iOS, and PC. That's 4 platforms, if you consider web and PC separate, and more if you consider windows and linux as separate.

Crossplatform is more valuable than ever. But react-native may not be the answer.

The context of this entire thread was about mobile ecosystem. The concept of "cross platform" only holds when you're comparing two similar ones

the whole premise (that i m sold on react-native) is that it lets you use code from your react app and run it natively.

And the concept of cross-platform is not only for "similar" platforms like mobile, but across disparate platforms, like mobile AND PC. Otherwise, what's the point of cross-platform?

As I said, that's not what people mean when they talk about "cross platform" in this context. Go to phonegap and see if they support PC. Cross platform means you should write once and it works everywhere without modifying anything, just like the web. But you can't be cross platform AND native on completely different types of platforms, since each has its own distinct feature sets. You are free to believe whatever you want but that doesn't really mean anything since you're basically arguing about something that I'm not even talking about.

And that means that ReactNative is better than phonegap! ;-)

I'm not completely sold on ReactNative compared to Phonegap and Electron as targets with React web... however, I can indeed see the appeal.

> So the whole issue boils down to "what if you get into a patent dispute with Facebook over a patent that doesn't relate to their core web UI tech". Which...I dunno, is that a real concern?

Yes!

On one hand, tons of HN commenters claim to be opposed to 1) NPEs going after smaller software concerns 2) giant ecosystem software vendors being the only choice when it comes to mobile/web technologies, but then this amateurish ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mindset carries the day on easily graspable concepts that directly affect the likelihood of patent infringement.

> But if my core business is making apps, then every patent I might have is likely to be covered by both patent grant termination clauses. So the issue is...?

Given the increasingly broader markets that Facebook, Amazon, et al. want to break into, the issue is for businesses whose core business doesn't relate to apps but that still want to leverage modern software (aka all of them).

Stop brushing off issues you don't understand and calling them FUD.

We've been here before. The patent protection used to go one-way, but now goes both ways after the issue was raised. Most open-source code comes without patent grants of any kind, so use would automatically infringe which is a far worse situation than here. More pragmatically, few companies could actively pursue a successful patent war with Facebook because the company would run out of capital before the suit was settled. That said, I haven't seen evidence that Facebook actually owns any patents related to React which makes the grant somewhat moot.

> Notwithstanding the foregoing, 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.