ThisCourtIsAnal

vor 9 Jahrendiscuss

It wouldn't be a "grant" if the user didn't have a choice of not taking it. Consider if somewhere in the repo there was a file called GOATS which conditioned the right to use react on having goats sacrificed to facebook every new moon, would it make react BSD+Goats licensed ?

ThisCourtIsAnal

vor 9 Jahrendiscuss

Yes to my non-lawyerish understanding making it a clause in the BSD license would be different - it would no longer be a BSD license but rather a new (non OSI) license containing provisions regarding patents.

I agree that software patents are evil but then so are many other parts of the modern legal system, but even with them it feels that what facebook (and other companies) are doing shouldn't have any legal standing - see my comment down the original thread.

ThisCourtIsAnal

vor 9 Jahrendiscuss

They assert it applies even if you are suing facebook for infringing on your hardware / biotech / business model patent. In my non-lawyer understanding the existence of the patent grant changes nothing in those circumstances (that is they could sue you without it as well with the same merit) and actually prevents them from suing without you suing them first, however companies do not usually restrict themselves like that and consider it a defensive move so someone who is a lawyer should explain what they are trying to pull here.

ThisCourtIsAnal

vor 9 Jahrendiscuss

<not a lawyer> In particular my reading is that the BSD license alone gives anyone an irrevocable right to use, modify and redistribute the software providing only the conditions in that license are met.

So one can either ignore the PATENTS file altogether or to formally fork the repo while omitting this file and it would be as if that file never existed.

Facebooks' (et al.) claim that these two files together constitute the governing license should be challenged as fraudulent - if they want to relicense react under a new license that contains terms regarding patents they can do so but the last revision before that would still be BSD licensed and the community can fork it. </still not a lawyer>

ThisCourtIsAnal

vor 9 Jahrendiscuss

This discussion just goes to show again the extent to which the tech community allowed itself to be gaslighted into accepting that:

1. Anything about react is patentable.

2. Licensing of unspecified patents is a thing.

3. Licensing of software without disclosing related patents held by the author does not invalidate those patents on the basis of bad faith acting alone.

In what obscene legal reality does adding a patent grant that can be revoked in certain circumstances puts the licensee in a worse position than a license that does not mention patents at all ?

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