<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div>Interesting, I hadn’t heard about the React licensing yet. Thanks.<div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">The 'Additional Grant' has attracted a fair amount of criticism (as</div><div class=""><div class="">did an earlier version which apparently resulted in some revisions by<br class="">Facebook). There was a recent blog post by Robert Pierce of El Camino<br class="">Legal [3] (which among other things argues that the React patent<br class="">license is not open source). Luis Villa wrote an interesting response<br class="">[4].<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Mr. Pierce’s first criticism point about the grant itself being unnecessary is spot on to me. One cannot "use the software” without implying a patent license; and the BSD-styles have such an incredibly well-established industry understanding that (to me) it’s ludicrous to consider it could be interpreted any other way. I would very much like to know what [profanity] company would try to pull such a stunt as plaintiff.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>The only utility of React’s PATENT file is the rather broad retaliation.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">What do members of the license-discuss community think about the<br class="">licensing of React? I see a few issues here:<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Conflicted.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">- does the breadth of the React patent termination criteria raise<br class=""> OSD-conformance issues or otherwise indicate that React should not<br class=""> be considered open source?<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>At best, it could be argued as some form of implicit discrimination (#5) or revocation of right to redistribute (#1). Retaliating against an “any" plaintiff vs only a specific class of plaintiff (e.g., Apache 2.0), though, isn’t very compellingly different. Seems like a stretch to me.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="">- is it good practice, and does it affect the open source status of<br class=""> software, to supplement OSI-approved licenses with separate patent<br class=""> license grants or nonasserts? (This has been done by some other<br class=""> companies without significant controversy.)<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>This is also a direction that has been discussed and is being pushed by some of the White House (<a href="http://code.gov" class="">code.gov</a>) and other Gov't lawyers.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>In cases like “CC0 + patent grant”, it may make sense given CC0 explicitly says there’s no patent grant. (Yes, I know CC0 is not (yet) an OSI license. That should change.) In the case of the implicit permissives, though, I think it’s very bad practice. Creates unfounded FUD and license proliferation motivation, counterpart licenses explicitly with/without a patent grant.</div><br class=""></div></div><div>Cheers!</div><div>Sean</div><div><br class=""></div></body></html>