React v0.13 released

class Foo { constructor() { this.whatever = 4; }

  bar() {
    this.whatever = 3;
  }

var foo = new Foo();

blah.onSomeEvent(foo.bar);

// When SomeEvent is triggered on blah, `this` will refer to blah, not foo.

console.log(blah.whatever); // 3 console.log(foo.whatever); // 4

// You have to: blah.onSomeEvent(foo.bar.bind(foo));

console.log(blah.whatever); // undefined console.log(foo.whatever); // 3

Which I know is just traditional JS, but it's a little unexpected because that's not how most OO languages operate.

    function Bar() {
      Foo.call(this);
    }

    Bar.prototype = Object.create(Foo.prototype);
    Bar.prototype.constructor = Bar;

    Foo.prototype.thing = function() { ....

    function super(obj, method) {
        for (var p = obj.prototype; p; p = p.prototype)
            if (p[method])
                return p[method];
        throw method+" not found";
    }

    subclass.prototype.overridden = function(x,y) {
        super(this, 'some_overriden_method').call(this, x, y);
        // ...
    }

- Harder to screw up. Even if you know what you're doing, prototypical inheritance involves several steps which can get repetitive.

- Interoperable with non-es6 "classes". It's not like you're losing anything.

If you the licensee also consider Modified BSD to have an implicit patent grant then the React patent grant is much worse for you than if it hadn't existed.

Guess I'm less less-informed now.

Granting patents in the context of permissively licensed open source is a generous act and making the grant conditional is a way of not giving up your ability to form the strongest possible defense when you're brought into patent litigation. If you have been following along the recent years events (where is that patent apocalypse, anyone?) then it should be no surprise why companies need to do that.

Conditional patent grants are not new. Apache License v2.0 has a conditional patent grant [http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0]. Google added a conditional patent grant to WebM, complementing its Modified BSD license [http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/]. Google's Dart project is licensed under Modified BSD and has a.. you guessed it - conditional patent grant [https://code.google.com/p/dart/source/browse/trunk/dart/PATE...].