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WordPress Ditches ReactJS Over Facebook's Patent Clause (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quote TechCrunch:
Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of the popular open source web publishing software WordPress, has said the community will be pulling away from using Facebook's React JavaScript library over concerns about a patent clause in Facebook's open source license. In a blog post explaining the decision yesterday, Mullenweg said he had hoped to officially adopt React for WordPress -- noting that Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com which he also founded, had already used React for the Calypso ground-up rewrite of WordPress.com a few years ago, while the WordPress community had started using it for its major Gutenberg core project.
But he said he has changed his mind after seeing Facebook dig in behind the patent clause -- which was recently added to the Apache Software Foundation's list of disallowed licenses... [H]e writes that he cannot, in good conscience, require users of the very widely used open source WordPress software to inherit the patent clause and associated legal risk. So he's made the decision to ditch React.
Facebook can revoke their license if a React user challenges Facebook's patents.
But he said he has changed his mind after seeing Facebook dig in behind the patent clause -- which was recently added to the Apache Software Foundation's list of disallowed licenses... [H]e writes that he cannot, in good conscience, require users of the very widely used open source WordPress software to inherit the patent clause and associated legal risk. So he's made the decision to ditch React.
Facebook can revoke their license if a React user challenges Facebook's patents.
Facebook wouldn't do anything untoward, would they? I mean, they were founded on the utmost propriety and honesty, right?
IANAL but I think WP is right. I don't know WP that much, so I will give example Apache. Assume Apache embeds FB code in their product and IBM uses that to create non open-source software and sell to Amazon. Amazon then sues FB for some e-commerce patent and now Amazon loses license to use IBM software if ReactJS has any FB patent. But Amazon already paid to IBM, so IBM will have to now defend it. Surely, IBM does not want to do it and being a member of Apache, it will tell Apache not to consume ReactJS. Replace Apache with any open source software and IBM with any non open-source software company and Amazon with a customer of this non open-source software company. FB needs to come clean if it wants to truly contribute to open source.