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Comment by vvanders | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

My less cynical view (hope) maybe react-native isn't due for an update soon and they'll do it next time there's a version bump?

You don't need to update anything else besides the license when changing the license, though? There's no version bump required.

Isn't the license file part of the distributed .tar.gz, packaging metadata, and other release artifacts? It's bad form to change the contents of a release after it's distributed. So even a small change like that would require a (minor) version bump.

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.

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.

> 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.

What more is there to evaluate, though? What is different between React, which did get the relicense, and React Native, which didn't?

You didn't interpret my comment correctly. What is worse is that the narrowly selected range of projects to re-license is intentional rather than unintentional. They're only fixing the patent clauses on the bare minimum that they feel is necessary due to outrage. That means that they'd rather not but they're being forced into it. It'd be different if they were deciding to re-license everything; that might indicate an actual change of heart.

What worries many is that they may change the license at a later

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.

Of course its intentional, unless you truely thought they forgot about React Native.

The common thread here is that these libraries are often used together - changing React's license wouldn't have helped if they're also using Flow and Jest.

They said they're evaluating those. Facebook has to consider the impact of each library on their patent portfolio. They may not choose MIT for some of them. Maybe they'll go with Apache v2 for React Native. Let's relax. They're making the right moves here.

I don't think it's fair to claim that it wasn't "truly open source". There isn't just one "truly open source" license. There are several. They obviously aren't all the same, that's why they are different licenses. People might have a reason to prefer one to another, but they are all "truly open source". People might even realize that there are some of them they can't use -- _many_ people have reasons they can't use the GPL, but that doesn't make it "not truly open source".

The Open Source Initiative's definition of "open source" doesn't say anything about patents: https://opensource.org/osd

I don't know if Facebook has asked the OSI to validate their "before" license as "open source." Perhaps if they did it would be controversial (or perhaps not), perhaps it would lead to OSI making more restrictions on what it will call 'open source', I dunno.

One version of a "BSD+Patents" license is approved by OSI, but not one involving a "retaliation" clause. https://opensource.org/licenses/BSDplusPatent

Anyway, I don't think you have any grounds to say that license was not "truly open source".

How are patents at all aligned with "truly open sourcing"? The GPLv3 is openly hostile to patent litigation:

"and you may not initiate litigation (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any patent claim is infringed by making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the Program or any portion of it"

The whole fight here is about patents, not about open source. Perhaps Facebook's solution to nuking patents was too crude, but it had nothing to do with "open source" vs "closed source". The whole issue here is whether you could still use your patents against Facebook, something orthogonal, if not outright hostile to open source.

The author of this Facebook Engineering post confirmed that React Native's license currently is the same as it's always been: https://twitter.com/dmwlff/status/911348886882607104. I don't want to get into a big discussion about precise details here but pragmatically both the MIT and Facebook BSD+Patents licenses work well for most businesses, in particular those that aren't seeking to claim patent infringement against others.

I may not intend to go suing FB for patent infringement, but if they infringe on one of my patents, or if they sue me for patent infringement, it's really my only recourse.

You're probably already infringing on several Facebook patents. They bought a $500 million war chest of them in 2012 after getting sued by Yahoo. Many of them were from AOL and probably cover really broad concepts that we're all infringing upon. Let's not forget Amazon patented "one click checkout". Ok software patents are ridiculous. They always have been. The patent system was not built with something like software in mind.

> if they infringe on one of my patents

Well, the implicit assumption behind FB's bsd+patents license is that you should be ok with anyone "infringing" on your software patents, since software patents are mostly bullshit and you only acquired them to be used in defense (i. e. never suing someone first). That license doesn't make any sense if you believe otherwise.

Well, the React PATENTS file seems to indicate that you would lose the patent grant for any patent assertion against Facebook,[1] not just for software patent assertions against Facebook. So, it's theoretically possible that the poster in the parent comment was concerned about a patent on something other than software. Maybe he or she has patented some type of VR headset, for example, and uses React VR for the software that drives it. He or she might reasonably worry that suing Facebook for infringement on the VR headset would result in the loss of patent protections concerning the React VR software.

[1] The language I'm thinking of is the part that says that the license terminates if you initiate "any Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (ii) . . . "

IANAL, etc. This is indeed a very problematic bit. I'm not sure if it is even possible to restate that patent grant in such a way that the termination clause would apply only to software patent assertions and simultaneously keep the text sufficiently unambiguous.

I agree that it is a legitimate concern if you believe that only software patents are a problem but want to keep your other patents available.

They probably left it this way because there is no legal definition of a "software patent" - they cannot differentiate between those and "other patents". It's not like "other patents" are all sunshine and rainbows either - the patent system is fundamentally broken.

Unfortunately lawyers don't care about pragmatics :-(

Yeah, that is a downer. I'm going to wait and see what they decide to do about React Native before asking my company's lawyers if we can use React now.

What????

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