If you worked long and hard on a piece of tech, gave that tech away to the world, and someone else improved your gift but then told you that you couldn’t use it, that’s ok?
I know this wasn’t directed towards me but…
If that’s not okay then no you did not in fact give it away. Expecting an entitlement in exchange for something you gave to someone would mean that it was not given away. It had a price tag.
I think you kind of completely missed the point. Let’s use a car analogy.
You finally make a breakthrough and invent a flying car. You then share the designs for this flying car with the world, for everyone to use.
Someone else comes in and invents a gizmo which only works with your car, let’s say, an ejector seat in case something happens. This someone else then patents this gizmo and, since the gizmo has your car as an integral part, the car is covered in this person’s patent.
Now you yourself can’t build your own flying car anymore - at least as long as you consider an ejector seat an important feature.
Wacky? Yes. But that’s software patents for you.
Basically, what they’re saying: Don’t build proprietary stuff on top of our stuff. You know, similar to what this whole “Open Source” was built upon.
No, I haven’t missed the point. You must be talking about someone else. The entire reason this thread came into being was due to facebook’s patent clause. Which can be classified as a weak retaliation clause. I think understanding this is the basis of the argument: That Facebook can feel free to infringe upon the IP of organizations that come to rely on React, since if those organizations assert a claim against Facebook, they immediately and automatically lose their license to use React, and are now using React without a license, illegally.
If that patents clause was not there, then sure Facebook can still infringe on an org’s IP (if they have any), but asserting a claim against Facebook would not suddenly transform them into an organization that is using unlicensed software.
I stand by my point that it’s unsubstantiated chicken-little-type FUD.
Completely incorrect.
1 Like
Great. I want to be wrong. Because I’d like to be able to use React if I can.
Make me see the light.
I wrote my explanation above and in the linked post. If you have questions beyond that, I’m happy to answer them.
1 Like
Lol. Nobody using React should even remotely worry about this.
Even in the unlikely scenario that your product becomes a top 5 website in the world and directly competes with Facebook in the social media sphere, even then, it would be a difficult lawsuit to win given the nature of open source and the recent rulings on piracy in the movie industry.
This is like stressing over what to say in your winning speech after you hit a home run playing in the World Series Championship game 7 AND being the favorite to win the league’s MVP award playing on a teraformed planet Mars.
1 Like
Good lord.
It’s not about winning or losing lawsuits.
The question that we are addressing is your organization losing its license to use something that it has come to rely on, regardless of the outcome of the case.
That scenario will go to court 100% of the time.
A software license is not a patent license. Two different things.
1 Like
It really is. The only people that should seriously be asking this question are working at top tier companies (google or some fortune 500s) who have full-time legal teams who can circle jerk themselves over this. If you’re sitting in your mom’s basement thinking about this before you start writing the first line of code for your “tinder for pepperoni pizza lovers” app, you’ve already lost. The chances you are affected by this are just so slim.
It really is. Google and some fortune 500s questioning react patent. I read somewhere on ycombinator from its employee. React is prohibited.
Well, that certainly sounds like a reliable source. /s
Also found this from React Discuss:
We use a standard BSD license paired with an additional patent grant for most of our open source projects. For brevity, we call this combination the Facebook BSD+Patents license. We’ve compiled some answers to common questions about the additional patent grant:
Does the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license terminate if I create a competing product?
No.
Does the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license terminate if I sue Facebook for something other than patent infringement?
No.
Does the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license terminate if Facebook sues me for patent infringement first, and then I respond with a patent counterclaim against Facebook?
No, unless your patent counterclaim is related to Facebook’s software licensed under the Facebook BSD+Patents license.
Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate?
No.
Since I’m not a lawyer and thus I don’t know all possibilities caused by it, I can’t comment on that, but here’s I found Lawyer perspective to Facebook patent clause.
1 Like
Locking this thread because there aren’t many new points being raised, it’s not Meteor-specific, and this is a technology forum, not a place to get legal advice.
3 Likes