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Well they could in the ocaml to js translator.

IMHO, Typescript exists and is of similar quality, far higher community mindshare, and moving from TS ->ES6 is much more easier (in an emergency).

If you write in Reason, the ultimate risk is if you think you will ever be acquired by Google, Microsoft, etc



Oh please, Microsoft uses React in production. Skype app is built on React Native. The business value of a startup has little to do with the tech stack, by the way.


> Skype app is built on React Native

And it shows, because it has become quite unresponsive versus the previous Java/Objective-C/C++ version.

Now I always postpone my Skype conversations to a PC near me.


no - you didnt understand what I meant. if you are going to get acquired by a company that has a potential patent dispute (of any kind), then this license is dangerous.

Now, people will still use React - because its javascript and at the end of the day, you can rewrite your web stack faster.

Imagine if you have a React Native app already distributed, a Caffe2 ai pipeline in production... or if your logic is in Bucklescript. Much harder to move away if your acquiring company is in a dispute.


If developing your idea in something else takes longer or is buggier, perhaps you'll never get to a stage where your company worth acquiring.


> then this license is dangerous.

...if Facebook has any patents. Which, in this case, it seems very likely they do not.



Right, and how many of them are on React?


Doesn't matter. You're licenses to all of Facebook's software gets revoked for any patent claim against Facebook.


> Doesn't matter. You're licenses to all of Facebook's software gets revoked for any patent claim against Facebook.

Incorrect. Your license to their patents gets revoked. Hence why the React license "issue" is basically a paper tiger. (See, eg, https://medium.com/@dwalsh.sdlr/react-facebook-and-the-revok...)


> Your license to their patents gets revoked.

That's not my reading. From the patent grant:

> Facebook ... grants to each recipient of the Software ... license under any Necessary Claims, to make, have made, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Software.

This doesn't say that they're granting you a license to their patents, just their software. In fact, about patents they go beyond to say:

> ... no license is granted under Facebook’s rights in any patent claims that are infringed by (i) modifications to the Software made by you or any third party or (ii) the Software in combination with any software or other technology.

IMO that's pretty clearly saying you don't actually have any license to their patents. Regarding the termination clause:

> The license granted hereunder will terminate....

It seems pretty clear the only license granted hereunder is the one to use the software; in other words if you sue FB for patent infringement you lose the right to use React/Reason.


> That's not my reading.

Literally every lawyer who has looked at that license agrees that your interpretation is wrong.

Also, licenses like this have standard language; if you're even slightly familiar with how such language is interpreted, you'd realise that this represents two independent licenses to two different things, which terminate in different cases.

Also, Facebook has publically explained what the language means to them, and yes, that would be legally binding on them.

Plus:

> IMO that's pretty clearly saying you don't actually have any license to their patents.

Right, a document titled "additional grant of patent rights" that "grants to each recipient of the Software [...] a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable (subject to the termination provision below) license under any [claim of a patent owned by Facebook that is necessarily infringed by the Software standing alone], isn't a grant of patent rights?

I'm sorry, but literally everything you've said is wrong. I highly suggest you read the analysis of an actual lawyer, such as the one I linked in the comment you're replying to, because you appear to have no clue what you're talking about.


OK, I'm happy to be corrected on this. In any case Reason is something I highly recommend everyone to check out.


According to Facebook's "Open Source License FAQ" [1]:

> Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate?

> No.

[1] https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556


The FAQ is not a binding contract. There is no reason to believe anything outside of the license itself, and the license sais you'll lose it if you file a patent infringement claim.

People lie. It happens. Facebook is not exactly the most noble company in the world.


Promissory estoppel.


Point taken. But then the question really is - is Bucklescript so much more compelling than Typescript to be playing lawyer-lawyer ?


Bucklescript is from Bloomberg, not Facebook.


Given how badly the latest Skype app performs vs the fast old one, I'd say it's more bad press than good press.


I think they dropped the ball on it, quality-wise. But that's not a RN thing, that's a Skype team thing. Instagram works just fine and it runs a significant chunk of its code on RN. For that matter, so does Discord, which also runs great.


I'm fairly sure that Bucklescript - the ocaml->js transpiler - is a Bloomberg project.

I also find it interesting that Microsoft is still maintaining React-related projects, despite the license issues.


Btw Bloomberg kindly donated the BuckleScript project. It's now under its own independent organization on Github.


> Well they could in the ocaml to js translator.

People were compiling OCaml to Javascript long before it was fashionable. js_of_ocaml is 7 years old and the project that comes from is older still.

Very narrow and specific implementation details might be patented but compiler technology itself is as old as the hills.




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