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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

>> such a license would be non-free

> I'm inclined to say you're mistaken. The FSF hasn't published an analysis of the React terms, but if they did, it seems pretty much assured that they'd deem it a "free software license, but incompatible with the GPL".

Richard Stallman said it is non-free [1]:

> React.js is nonfree because of its patent license restriction.

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

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> Richard Stallman said it is non-free

And after actually reading it he said it's okay to use for GNU projects: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

Thanks! I also found the following one which gives a rationale [1]. The fine distinction is that the patent grant is completely separate from the copyright license and the termination of patent grant has no influence on the copyright license whatsoever. Unfortunately these messages are not in a single thread, so it is a bit hard to find them.

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/directory-discuss/2017-01...

>Richard Stallman said it is non-free

Not the most impartial person to define "free" and "non-free".

Richard Stallman and the FSF are literally the Inês behind the original de definition of "free software". What are you trying to say there?

Anyway, even if you dont line Mr. Stallman, the set of licenses he deems as free software is pretty much 99.9% compatible with the set of licenses deemed "open source" by the OSI or licenses acceptable by Debian (the other authorities you might Sant to look to when it comes to this)

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