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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

Agreed, zstd is probably one of the most exciting new developments in compression.

However this worries me:

https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/PATENTS

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The license granted hereunder will terminate [...] if you [...] initiate [...] any Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (ii) against any party if such Patent Assertion arises in whole or in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software.

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Not a lawyer, but I would guess that's makes it a non-starter for many situations. You sue them, now your customers' data, your code repository, or backups have to be decoded with a software for which don't have a license to use anymore. Am I crazy, and this is not a BigDeal(TM)? Or does anyone else have an issue with this?

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Patents are separate from copyright licenses. If you find some source code licensed under GPLv2, MIT, BSD, and many other OSS licenses, then these come with no patent license. It is up to you to find out if any patents covering them exist (by original authors or anyone else), and negotiate a patent license. Or if you live in a country that does not recognise software patents, you can just ignore the issue.

So an explicit patent grant, even if terminated if you sue Facebook for patent infringement, is much better than omitting the PATENTS file.

The very popular OSS Apache 2.0 license includes the same language to grant a patent license that is terminated if you start a patent lawsuit. Avoid suing Google about Android patents or Microsoft about .NET patents if you are using that software.

Overall I think it's a good thing, and if enough open-source projects adopt the same rule, then it could perhaps become a poison pill that stops everyone from enforcing software patents.

> Apache 2.0 license includes the same language

No, Apache-2.0's language around patents is more restricted, as others in this thread have noted.

I agree with your concerns. This seems to be standard for Facebook.

I saw a similar grant for React js project [1]. The wording has had me look at alternatives for commercial use. The patent grant in React has been on HN several times in the past [2]

Facebook has an Open Source License FAQ where the explicitly do NOT mention the scenario you mention. [3]

[1] https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/master/PATENTS [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12108158 [3] https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

How an somebody explicitly not-do something?

This is standard for Facebook open source. Keep complaining though, they've made adjustments in the past (it used to be worse?) due to these types of concerns being raised.

Updating Our Open Source Patent Grant

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9356508 (2 years ago)

Prior to being into Facebook's GitHub, it was into a Yann's GitHub, with different license terms. Someone could fork it, keeping the compatibility with the latest API. It could be enough for FB being pragmatic and releasing it under a more permissive license (in my opinion they should, making wider adoption easier).

Not a lawyer, but it would almost certainly still be covered by the FB patent.

Which patent applies to Zstandard?

I wouldn't worry. It sounds very similar to what's been in Apache2 for years: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences...

Apache2 seems to be talking only about suing regarding the patent related to the work in question:

> such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.

Facebook's version applies if you sue Facebook for any patent assertion.

Say you have a startup in talks to being bought by Google. The are suing Facebook because Facebook stole their ad click fraud detection algorithm. Now they'd be an additional worry about that patent claim.

How does that play with BSD license file which presumably has no such restrictions: https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/LICENSE

Good question. I can see two interpretation (but IANAL so am probably very wrong here):

1) BSD license covers copyright, and that patent file covers patent grants. Totally separate things. If you sue Facebook, you retain the BSD license and they can't sue you back for copyright infringement, but they can then come after you asserting you infringed their compression patents and demand royalties.

2) Because PATENTS file says "Additional Grant of Patent Rights Version 2" it could mean an extension of the BSD license. That is the termination would trigger the revocation of copyright license as well not just patent protection.

The License FAQ covers question #2: https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556

Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate?

No.

The BSD license allows adding more restrictions. That's why people like it, because it allows you to remove freedoms; or rather, they dislike copyleft because it does not allow adding further restrictions.

I don't know what are the consequences of the Facebook patent clause, but I know the BSD license doesn't contradict it.

BSD is _more_ restrictive than what Facebook gives you here, since it doesn't give you any patent grant at all.

The BSD license states "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: ...". If facebook is distributing their project under that license, and the terms are followed, then any lawsuit that facebook files against you for redistribution or use of the binary or source forms should be covered by promissory estoppel. I can't see how patents would change that. IANAL, though.

I think patents on software are almost immoral, and I will freely promise, under any penalty you can think of, to never sue anyone for software patent infringement.

So no, this is just another one where once or twice a year someone reads that license and tries to make it a "BugDeal".

This isn't saying you can't sue Facebook, it's saying you can't sue them for patent infringement

> zstd is probably one of the most exciting new developments in compression

I'm not sure what the excitement is, Pied Piper has had faster and deeper compression for over two years.

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