Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Facebook Petitioned To Change License For ReactJS (github.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Apache-License-v2.0-and-GPL-2-v2.0 dept.

mpol writes: The Apache Software Foundation issued a notice last weekend indicating that it has added Facebook's BSD+Patents [ROCKSDB] license to its Category X list of disallowed licenses for Apache Project Management Committee members. This is the license that Facebook uses for most of its open source projects. The RocksDB software project from Facebook already changed its license to a dual Apache 2 and GPL 2. Users are now petitioning on GitHub to have Facebook change the license of React.JS as well.

React.JS is a well-known and often used JavaScript Framework for frontend development. It is licensed as BSD + Patents. If you use React.JS and agreed to its license, and you decide to sue Facebook for patent issues, you are no longer allowed to use React.JS or any Facebook software released under this license.

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Actual License: https://github.com/facebook/rea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's really odd about this whole situation is that this FB license and the associated patent grant are still more comprehensible to an average person than any of the GPL licenses are.

    I've done a very quick check, and if my counting of words is right then the GPLv2 has nearly 3000 words, and GPLv3 appears to have over 5500 words in it. The license and patent grant in question here have just over 500!

    Something is pretty fucked up with the GPL family licenses if they need 6x to 10x the number of words than this FB license and patent grant require.

    Now the Apache license seems to be around 1500 words, so it's not as bad of a situation as the GPLv2 or GPLv3 situation is, but it's still not good when it requires 3x the number of words.

    Freedom is inherently a simple concept. It shouldn't require 3000 or more words to describe. The MIT and BSD licenses do it just fine with a few hundred words.

  2. Re:Actual License: https://github.com/facebook/rea by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > This is a ridiculous argument. The number of words in a document does not indicate how comprehensible that document is.

    Or how safe. In many contracts, the devil is in the details. GPL has evolved to a longer license, and explicitly included patents in GPLv3, because various companies and individuals have tried to legally and illegally violate its stated goals. The more explicit license of GPL has helped protect us from monopoly control of media and of data, and is now helping protect developers and computer users from patent abuse.

  3. Re:Actual License: https://github.com/facebook/rea by hord · · Score: 3, Insightful

    GNU and the FSF have their own version of "Freedom" that is used as the philosophical basis for their licensing. It's a completely different mindset from the people that use MIT/BSD licensing.