https://thenextweb.com/dd/2017/09/19/should-developers-be-afraid-of-zuckerbergs-bearing-gifts/#.tnw_mSq2SViw
Ok I think I’ll go back to blaze…
2 Likes
I’m literally shaking right now
I think I’ll switch to “backend” development 
Vue all the way, especially thanks to @akryum! Much quicker development time, easier to understand and no silly licencing rubbish.
3 Likes
Yeah, Vue is super nice, the dev experience is very nice.
1 Like
Well I really like the React API and the ecosystem is great. I’m not feeling threatened by their license because I’m a small player for now but I do see it as problematic.
Basically lawyers in large monopoly cooperation is using open source code to defend their empire. It goes against many of the principles that open source community hold dear to their hearts. They’re using open source code to get an upper hand in patents war so they can strengthen their monopoly and dominance. It seems they’ve got great engineers with sneaky lawyers and FB is treating open source developers and engineers like it treats their user base, something to be exploited for their own profit and dominance.
React is bigger than what FB released because of all the community components that were created which are all impacted by this license, and concept of web components predates react by a decade, they’ve just implemented it better. And who is really going to get the hit by this license anyway? mostly emerging startups who could threaten FB, large companies have the resources to change the front-end code to something else, but startups who relay heavily on open source code will be impacted the most. If you threaten FB in any way, they decide to make a move on you or copy a feature you create to kill you, you’re forced to change all your front-end code (or maybe API if use GraphQL) before fighting back.
Their counter argument is that if (god forbid) all companies release their open source with similar license, patent war will decrease and companies will be more encouraged to release core technology . Actually what will happen is that people will stop using the open source code under such a license (which is already happening with react) because, in large cooperations, lawyers decisions always trump those made by engineers and the entire open source ecosystem will suffer proportionally to the spread of such license. Furthermore, no cooperation will ever release highly critical competitive source code of their business to open source under any license if their lawyers/executives perceive it as a competitive threat. React and GraphQL are not core to FB business so they’ve released it open source (like all good companies do) but they went a step further to use that as means to strengthen their dominance and that’s why there is a backlash.
Now I’m not feeling threatened because I don’t plan to get in a patent fight with FB anytime soon and because react and it’s ecosystem are technically solid and I’ve interest in seeing React adoption increase, but I really despise this license and support the big open source foundations that are fighting back. I think, contrary to what FB lawyers think, FB engineers (and eventually FB) will suffer the most from such a license, because the tech community is not as naive as the average FB user base, and they’ll surely fight back just like what we’re witnessing these days.
4 Likes
I’m talking to a fellow patent attorney about a crowdsourced and crowdfunded attack on Facebook’s patent portfolio. I’m trying to gauge interest and if developers will really toss $50 to the cause. Stay tuned…
2 Likes
Vue or Preact 
I have just started two new apps where I use Vuejs with Vuetify
If those frameworks make sense for you and your project, great.
But if those frameworks are selected simply to avoid the React license, that’s not rational.
2 Likes
The Facebook Patent License punishes you for suing Facebook, but lets them sue you. Remember Oracle v. Google?!
I think most people focus on the grant rather than the revocation clause. The point of the revocation clauses in both the Facebook license and the Apache license is to discourage certain behavior.
The Apache license seeks to protect the open source project and its users from lawsuits, and therefore protects users from the actions of contributors.
The Facebook license seeks to protect all of Facebook, and therefore doesn’t protect users from (all of) Facebook.
To its credit, Facebook seems to recognize this, acknowledging that it may “lose some React community members because of this decision.”
Vuejs is faster and I dont like facebook and there “friend spam” algorithm so I dont use anything from facebook corp.
Facebook patents are based on other people’s work; so many devs contributing to the overall development of React and other Facebook related technologies. Facebook started on OSS contributed by other community devs, and most, if not all Facebook OSS are ideas of other solutions improved upon by smart engineers at Facebook.
I strongly believe any software or systems developed as a result of the usage or inclusion of other OSS or solutions from a consortium of companies SHOULD NOT be patentable.
1 Like
Exactly, it was built on OSS technology (MySQL and PHP), they’ve benefited from OSS contributions over the years but their license does nothing more than putting emerging startups built on OSS technology in a legally weakened position should they ever threaten FB dominance. And if more companies start to adopt such a license, it will cripple the entire OSS ecosystem.
2 Likes
Can someone explain why then everyone is into Vue now? I mean is it as easy as Blaze to be integrated into Meteor and if so, what are the advantages if it over Blaze?
I am also dropping React but I intended to go back to Blaze. Shouldn’t Blaze be exploding by Meteor Devs coming back already?
I’m only speaking from personal experience of course, but there are a few reasons I switched from React to Vue:
- Of course, partly because of the licensing stuff.
- It’s easy to understand, even for less experienced developers.
- It’s got a great community around it. Laravel devs (for example) have really embraced Vue.
- It’s fast. Performance-wise my apps are faster with Vue over React (not much, but a bit).
- It’s not a Facebook product.
If people want to go back to Blaze then that’s great, but Vue has a lot more support and a larger community. For me that’s a winner
It’s not quite as easy to integrate as Blaze, but it’s certainly not difficult either thanks to the packages @akryum has produced.
1 Like
If you really like React, why not give Inferno a try? same API but faster, and without this license
This is all good, but these points are about how Vue wins over React.
Okay but still I am wondering why not back to Blaze? Is it that bad/slow in terms of parsing, rendering, updating etc.?
@antoninadert Inferno looks very interesting so most of my component structure could be kept on the client
Yeah but I already have tons of react code, and also there are tons of community packages created which I’m many developers went on to contribute without paying close attention to the fine prints…
I would say now is a good time to start the switch. Plus you can benefit from React ecosystem in Inferno with the compat mode.
By the way Preact is not recommended because it is slower than React, while Inferno has a bigger bundle size than Preact (still very low), it has way better performances.
I’m in the middle of an 8 months projects that has tons of react components along with 3rd party components. Refactoring and testing the front-end is not an easy undertaking, and the license issue is not a show stopper for our business.
When we made the decision to move from blaze to react almost a year ago, everyone was praising react and moving away from Blaze. We didn’t even go-live and people now talking about switching back! shipping on time is crucial, constant libraries churn will kill the business, and front-end churn is kind of ridiculous these days. Beside it seems gray area whether the react derivatives such as Inferno (and even vue) is not impacted by the react license.
As I said I’m really disappointed by this license, and the fuss around it (rightfully so) and I think FB lawyers were sneaky and unethical but hey it’s FB. However I’d rather see react improve and the license fought hard.
2 Likes