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Facebook Relents, Switches React, Flow, Immuable.js and Jest To MIT License (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the new-notifications dept.

An anonymous reader quotes the Register: Faced with growing dissatisfaction about licensing requirements for some of its open-source projects, Facebook said it will move React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable.js under the MIT license next week. "We're relicensing these projects because React is the foundation of a broad ecosystem of open source software for the web, and we don't want to hold back forward progress for nontechnical reasons," said Facebook engineering director Adam Wolff in a blog post on Friday. Wolff said while Facebook continues to believe its BSD + Patents license has benefits, "we acknowledge that we failed to decisively convince this community"... Wolff said the updated licensing scheme will arrive next week with the launch of React 16, a rewrite of the library designed for more efficient operation at scale.
Facebook was facing strong criticism from the Apache Software Foundation and last week Wordpress.com had announced plans to move away from React.

"Wolff said Facebook considered a license change for its other open-source projects, but wasn't ready to commit to anything," the Register adds. "Some projects, he said, will keep the BSD + Patents license."

27 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't cover React Native by akahige · · Score: 3, Informative

    Top of the thread.

  2. Vue is still what web deveopment shoud be by SysEngineer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Writing JavaScript to support a HTML template is what web design should be like. Writing JavaScript with HTML sprinkled in not the way the HTML was designed. jQuery a way to deal with advance web pages before polyfil, React is just super jQuery. Angular is good but too restrictive and formal. Vue is the best so far. but still not there. I believe parent / child communication should be easier, messages and props create a clean interface but it is limited.

    1. Re:Vue is still what web deveopment shoud be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      HTML templates only work if the layout of your site is fairly static, or composed of parts which themselves are fairly static. For a highly dynamic interface (e.g. a single page web app with more in common with a desktop app), it simply makes more sense to invert the flow of logic.

    2. Re:Vue is still what web deveopment shoud be by tepples · · Score: 1

      For a highly dynamic interface (e.g. a single page web app with more in common with a desktop app), it simply makes more sense to invert the flow of logic.

      A vocal minority claim that developers of Internet applications ought to be releasing a desktop application for each major operating system, with public API specifications to allow third parties to develop clients for minor operating systems, instead of a single-page web application.

    3. Re:Vue is still what web deveopment shoud be by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      You mean separating the "internal" gibletty stuff from the "external" pretty stuff? What next, splitting the "external" stuff into "inny things" and "outy things"? And then deciding that the last two are sort-of-nearly-almost the same and sticking them partially back together?

      You're absolutely barmy. No way could that catch on.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. Parse by jtara · · Score: 1

    I've leave this stuff to the FaceLemmings.

    One word: Parse.

    But this time is different.

    1. Re:Parse by lorien420 · · Score: 1

      You can still use Parse http://parseplatform.org/

      It's still mostly compatible with the version of the library that supported Backbone too. I basically just ignored the client side, migrated the server side, and moved on with my life. It was a pain, but not quite the technological showstopper people make it out to be. I really wish we'd use Parse as a good example of how to retired a project.

      --
      "[We'll be] really getting inside your head and making it an unpleasant place to be" -- Trent Reznor
    2. Re:Parse by jtara · · Score: 1

      Yes, you can still use Parse, - if you got stuck with it- since Facebook open-sourced it. And there are companies that will sell you Parse PAAS at excessive prices - because they have a captive audience who got stuck.

      I basically just ignored the client side

      Smart move! Spooky Database Action At A Distance. Not good.

  4. Excellent! But why isn't GraphQL included? by davide+marney · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An extremely positive development for FB. I'm a little surprised they went all the way back to MIT. Even Apache has a claw-back provision, but its scope is limited to lawsuits over the product itself, not lawsuits against the entire company. Maybe they didn't feel they could limit the scope in practice, so they just opened it all up.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  5. Re:I trust devs who use the MIT license. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You don't get it do you.

    It's not called "Free Software" because jerks like you are free to take it, leech off it, for free and never give anything back.

    It's called "Free Software" because the software itself is free from jerks like you taking it, leeching off it, for free and never giving anything back.

  6. Good for them by CustomBuild · · Score: 1

    I will applaud any entity that moves their licensing to a less restrictive model, regardless of their past behavior. Licenses are a royal pain in the ass and often contain hidden gotchas. Any license(looking at you gpl) which offers clear boundaries is a joy to work with.

  7. That's fun to say. Lose money 10 years straight by raymorris · · Score: 1

    > short term profit is the most important goal.

    That's fun to say, isn't it.

    Yet, companies like Facebook, Amazon, etc spend 10 years or more losing money in the expectation that it'll pay off 10 years later. Amazon was founded in 1994 and continued to invest for the future (lose money) until 2013, when it was time to turn a small profit.

    Five years after launching Facebook, in 2008, Zuckerberg was asked about plans to make a profit with Facebook one day. He said "in three years or so it'll be time to start thinking about how to monetize it."

    YouTube was launched by PayPal employees in 2005 and focused on investing (losing money) in order to get more viewers until 2010, five years.

    The actual fact is that Zuckerberg ran Facebook for many years without even thinking about how they'd EVENTUALLY make money long-term, much less focusing on *short-term* profit. Heck, it wasn't until after they'd been running Facebook for 5 years, and had millions of users, that they decided the way they would eventually make profit was by running advertising. Profit simply wasn't something these companies focused on at all.

    1. Re:That's fun to say. Lose money 10 years straight by sittingnut · · Score: 1

      there are profits and profits.

      it is disingenuous to say people running facebook did not focus on profits for years. they were intent on giving a return to their investors.

      entities invested in facebook through time(regardless of actual profitability) expecting a return on investment, not necessarily through profits in financial accounts, but usually through appreciation of value of their investment based on speculations about future profits.
      and speculations about future profits, involve and motivates to those who run these corps, more or less in same way as actual profits. (unless they are fraudsters intent of cheating the investors, in which case they intentionally make false claims about future potential )

    2. Re:That's fun to say. Lose money 10 years straight by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Investors usuallybmake money via an IPO, not via the earnings the company makes they invested in.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:That's fun to say. Lose money 10 years straight by sittingnut · · Score: 1

      investors can make money through IPO( and at each round of funding before IPO, and later taking long positions on publicly traded shares), only if there are speculations about future profits ( after analysis of their financial performance ,usually with help of analysts at investment banks) .
      a company that is expected to remain unprofitable in future will not have a successful IPO.

    4. Re:That's fun to say. Lose money 10 years straight by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      that is expected to remain unprofitable in future will not have a successful IPO
      Obviously.
      So they find a way to make it look profitable, e.g. look at FB.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  8. Coming soon: Infinite Jest by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    This will be Facebook's scripting language for highly addictive content.

  9. I can match almost any desktop app using Vue by SysEngineer · · Score: 1

    How non static do you want? Look at Tax N Vote for a dynamic display. Most desktop app do not have 3D.

  10. Long term, not short, by focusing on userrs by raymorris · · Score: 1

    The claim was:
    > Short term profit is the most important goal.

    That's obviously very false. Yes, they did figure they eventually make a profit MANY YEARS LATER. Not this quarter, not next quarter, not next year. So very much the opposite of "short term profit". Rather, they made long term investment.

    > it is disingenuous to say people running facebook did not focus on profits for years.

    The fact is, they didn't even discuss how they would eventually make revenue for many years. Their FOCUS was on getting more users. Sure they wanted to make money some day, but they didn't do that by focusing on profit; they did that by focusing on users. They figured, correctly, that once they had a hundred million happy users they could figure out profit then - years later. So they focused on the user base, paying no mind to revenue or profit. It worked.

        YouTube did the same. That's the correct strategy for a rapidly growing new market - spend the first several years getting bigger, while losing tons of money. Focusing on short-term profit in a rapidly growing new market is how you make $100,000 before shutting down, losing out to the companies who are focused on long term growth and unconcerned with near-term profit.

  11. Yet more javascript libraries... by Viol8 · · Score: 1

    ... for idiot lego brick style web "developers". The whole javascript ecosystem is joke house of cards - a bad initial paradigm, a badly designed language with half assed libraries thrown on top used by bottom of the barrel coders who wouldn't be able to code in C++, java or some other grown up language if their lives depended on it. Yet most of the web now relies on this bloody garbage. How the hell did we get here? I despair.

  12. WordPress strikes again by JenovaSynthesis · · Score: 2

    I'm sure Facebook's change of heart has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Matt Mullenweg announced on Thursday that WordPress was going to ditch React as a result of this BSD+Patents crap as he did not feel comfortable pushing that kind of a license onto about a third of all websites.

    --
    Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch :)
  13. Recognition of U.S. Constitution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    we don't want to hold back forward progress for nontechnical reasons," said Facebook engineering director Adam Wolff

    Article I, section 8, states, "Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

    Finally, somebody recognizes that patents and copyright are intended to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Microsoft and Apple still seem to think that these laws are intended to squash the competition.

  14. Why Mithril.js is what web development should be by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    Mithril.js emphasizes leveraging JavaScript using the HyperScript API (instead of an adhoc templating language) and automatic redrawing when your application changes via user interaction or a network event. This makes web single-page application development quite pleasant to write and maintain and is scalable. You can also test much of such vdom-based UIs without creating real DOM nodes.
    https://mithril.js.org/

    Check out Tachyons and similar CSS libraries which use CSS classes to essentially define inline styles efficiently and in a maintainable way across big applications. Tachyons works especially well with HyperScript, letting you can do almost all your UI styling in JavaScript.

    Here is one example FOSS project I wrote in that style: https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

    Of course, few web developers grok this yet because most affirm "best practices" from years ago (e.g. semantic CSS, HTML-first design, JavaScript as a progressive afterthought). Most web developers are used to coding in non-standard HTML-ish templating systems (e.g. Angular, Vue, JSX). This give them a false sense of security they can maintain more complex apps that are mostly about JavaScript. By leveraging JavaScript from the start, Mithril.js may have a slightly higher learning curve (learning more about JavaScript), but it pays off down the road with much more maintainable applications.

    React has helped a lot of developers begin to move past some of that, but it has its own baggage (including JSX) from being only half-way to the new paradigm outlined above. MIT licensing improves things, but I still feel Mithril is better for technical reasons. Mithril is simpler internally because Mithril does not emphasize subtree component rendering which React does for "efficiency" but which I'd suggest in practice leads to worse designs and a less understandable core. I also feel HyperScript is a better way to write UIs than JSX by keeping all your code in standard JavaScript/TypeScript without other awkward object constructions. While you can use HyperScript with React via a third-party library, it is a bit klunky as an add on, and most of the React code examples and libraries use JSX.

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  15. I now withdraw an issue for WordPress/Calypso by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 1

    From almost two years ago: "Replace React with Mithril for licensing reasons"
    https://github.com/Automattic/...

    That said, I still feel Mithril.js + Tachyons.css is a better way to develop web apps (see my other comment on this article).

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  16. Re: I trust devs who use the MIT license. by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    You really don't understand this whole thing at all, do you? Or you do and that's why you posted as AC.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  17. I don't understand how this will help by pavon · · Score: 1

    I thought that the problem with the Facebook BSD+Patent license was that they granted you a patent license, but would revoke it if you sued them for patent infringement (even if completely unrelated to the software in question). This new license doesn't grant any patent license at all, so how is that better?

  18. we acknowledge that we failed to decisively convin by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

    Next time someone calls me on my bullshit and I lose an argument, I'll try to remember to say, "I acknowledge that I failed to decisively convince you."