The perceived risk attached to the patent clause hinges on how Facebook can revoke the patent license if a React user challenges its patents or sues the company for patent infringement — meaning Facebook could bring a patent infringement claim against a person or entity suing it for patent infringement.
So companies, especially those with large patent portfolios, may well have concerns if they are using open source software which incorporates Facebook’s React framework — even if Automattic feels comfortable on its own account.
Some of the fiercest critics of the patent clause have dubbed React a “‘Trojan horse’ into the open source community”.
Writing on Hacker News in the wake of the ASF’s move, developer Kevinflo summed up his concerns thus: “Even if we paint all of their actions in the most favorable possible light, and even if the clause is a paper tiger as some have claimed, it doesn’t matter. This is not how open source should work. We should not have to debate for years if a project’s license is radioactive. Especially individual devs like myself who just want to use a great tool. We should be able to just use it, because it’s open and that’s what open means. This is so much worse than closed. It’s closed masquerading as open.”
React is the main thing most corporations use for front-end development now, and they absolutely should not. Facebook's "radioactive" and constantly shifting licenses gives them the ability to revoke the permission to use React under vague terms. Therefore Facebook has the ability to legally shut down any corporate website unwise enough to choose React.
In a similar way, most corporate servers are now hosted at Amazon AWS and therefore are dependent on Amazon not to simply shut them off and instantly put them out of business.
It's truly astounding how the corporate leadership has simply abandoned their responsibility to shareholders and created these massive single points of failure.
If China wants to take down America, all it has to do is take down Amazon's servers. Probably not all that hard, given that AWS data centers are so centralized in only a few cities.
The point of open source patents is to prevent the software creator from controlling/charging the users. If you have to put language about lawsuits in your patent, you are NOT open source.
React is the main thing most corporations use for front-end development now, and they absolutely should not. Facebook's "radioactive" and constantly shifting licenses gives them the ability to revoke the permission to use React under vague terms. Therefore Facebook has the ability to legally shut down any corporate website unwise enough to choose React.
Just remember: React is radioactive. Stay away.
#facebook