Ariel also doesn't like this clause in the React license:
The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (ii) against any party if such Patent Assertion arises in whole or in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software.
To my reading, there are two separate items: a copyright license and a patent grant.
- The former allows you to make copies of the software
- The latter protects you from Facebook claiming patent infringement arising from the use of React Native (aka, Necessary Claims). It doesn't necessarily mean they have such patents but if they do, you are protected.
So if the reciprocity clause in Facebook's patent grant is a problem, all recent MIT licensed software out there without a patent grant would also be off limits.
Yep. And depending on the details of the concern, so would an Apache or Mozilla licensed project, since they have explicit grants with termination clauses only slightly narrower than React's.
...but so many smaller companies and startups use React. Personally all of my employments (five at this point) have used it and none had more than twenty programmers. Has it actually been an issue in real life?
Or FB sues you over literally any patent you happen to be infringing. They're a big company, I'm sure their patent war chest has a few zingers for cases like these.
Oh, and your scenario only works if you sue FB/Instagram over your patents first. They can't revoke the patent grant willy-nilly except in retaliation.
I should point out we don't even know whether Facebook even has any patents for anything React does. And even if they do we don't know whether there are other libraries that do the same things and therefore infringe on those patents, making you liable if you use them.
It's software patents you should be worried about, not open source projects that try to offer you even the tiniest amount of protection from them.
You mean unlike every company that is behind any other project you are relying on that doesn't come with an explicit patent grant?
In other words you have no MIT or BSD licensed dependencies, or in fact no open source dependencies that don't either come with an explicit non-revocable patent grant and aren't licensed under Apache 2.0, GPLv3 or MPL 2.0 (all of which by the way still terminate the patent grant if you sue over infringement of patents within the licensed code itself).
True, but it give Facebook more legal leverage over you, arguably, and Facebook is more likely to abuse that power than a loose collection of open-source programmers, or a smaller, less wealthy company that doesn't have its tendrils everywhere.
Barely anyone complaining about the patent grant seems to understand this point, so I'll reiterate:
The MIT license, the BSD licenses, and so on, don't contain a patent grant. Only the Apache 2.0, GPLv3 and MPL 2 licenses do.
If you use an open source project which doesn't come with a patent grant, you can be sued for patent infringement over that project.
Facebook's patent grant prohibits Facebook from suing you over patent infringement for using React, except if you sue them over patents first.
So nothing in your stance is specific to Facebook. If you use AngularJS, Google can sue you over any patents used in AngularJS.
Facebook's patent grant acts as a kind of "no first strike" policy they have to obey for React-related patents: they can't sue you over React-related patents unless you sue them first.
Yes, Facebook can still sue you over other patents. Everybody can do this, even if you don't use their software.
Is Facebook's patent grant as permissive as those in the Apache 2.0, MPL 2.0 and GPLv3 licenses? No -- these only allow retaliation if you sue over the projects the licenses cover specifically.
But the patent grant is considerably better than not having a patent grant. If React is covered by patents (nothing in the grant requires Facebook to actually own any relevant patents), it's extremely likely similar libraries are just as likely to be covered by them (without a patent grant from Facebook) and open you up for liability.
Patents are not specific to software. If something React does is covered by a patent and another project also does it, that's still covered by the patent even if the code isn't from React, even if the author wasn't even aware of React doing it and never heard of the patent.
So, yes, if you exclusively use GPLv3/Apache 2.0/MPL 2 licensed projects, you're safe -- except for all the other patents you might be infringing on that aren't owned by the maintainers (and that the maintainers therefore can't give you a patent grant for).
But there is no scenario whatsoever where using React opens you up to more patent woes than using an alternative implementation -- or a comparable project (like AngularJS, Ember, etc) that doesn't come with a patent grant.
If you're concerned about React, be concerned about AngularJS first. Because if you use AngularJS, Google can sue you over patents without having to wait for you to sue them first.
One of the first questions I would ask is what is an indirect assertion of a patent in this situation? If you get shaken down by a patent troll for a patent related to React stuff, would that be considered an indirect assertion? After all, you're making a statement there that React is violating some patent. While I can agree with patent severance clauses, this one just feels full of real ugliness that would drive a lawyer crazy.
The license granted hereunder will terminate, automatically and without notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, (ii) against any party if such Patent Assertion arises in whole or in part from any software, technology, product or service of Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or corporate affiliates, or (iii) against any party relating to the Software.