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WordPress Ditches ReactJS Over Facebook's Patent Clause (techcrunch.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the leaving-over-licenses dept.

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.

6 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Now Facebook Wouldn't... by Captain+Ramage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Facebook wouldn't do anything untoward, would they? I mean, they were founded on the utmost propriety and honesty, right?

  2. Vue framework is great. by SysEngineer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    React is is JavaScript wrapping HTML. Vue is easy to understand because it wraps HTML with JS. There are some state issues that vuex does not solve. but it is much better then React.

  3. Link To The Patent Clause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the actual patent clause being discussed:

    https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/132013366d202dbd5d5c6463c60898bdd420055b/PATENTS

  4. WordPress is right by u19925 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. The problem is the SCOPE of the revocation by davide+marney · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not a lawer obviously, but my read is that both Apache and FB have a provision that says one's grant to use its software is revoked if you sue them for patent infringement. The difference is that Apache's revocation is limited to the work itself, whereas FB's revocation is unlimited: if you sue FB for the infringement of *any* patent, then your grant to React is revoked.

    So: both have a poison pill. But if you incorporate React into a product that is going to be used by a lot of downstream people, then you are putting them all at risk of losing permission to use React, just because they use your product. Not nice.

    The solution is to claw back the scope. FB can still get all the protection it needs, but it has to limit that protection to one specific product at a time. It can't use React as the trojan horse to win patent protection across the board.

    Good call, WordPress.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  6. In this context... by mha · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is a link to a question that sheds some light on aspects pretty much always overlooked in discussions. Most people don't seem to understand what the issue is because very few people participating in these discussions own patents or ever thought much about it.

    https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/14337/q-about-consequences-of-a-software-license-amendment-regarding-patents-facebook

    Basically, the issue is this:

    If a company, let's say a biotech company, owns patents - not on software, on _anything_ - finds that Facebook infringes on their patent they cannot sue them if they happen to use one of Facebook'S projects. So if Facebook were to start a spinoff that uses IP from the biomedical company they can do so, they wrote a blank check fro themselves. You have to trust them not to do that.

    The above is not a statement of fact, it's the question that still is open (see link). The one answer there from yesterday (the Q itself is from Oct 2016) does not actually answer it either.