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Dina Gathe

Aug 24, 2017

Will Facebook/React patent concerns create longer term skepticism in adopting open source libraries from larger corporations in general?

Is there already sufficient skepticism? Is that good...bad for open source?

#reactjs #react-native #opensource #facebook

Responses(2)

Todd

Software Security TechLead

Aug 24, 2017

I've always thought this corporation-backed open source crap was a terrible idea.

I know I know, a lot of people disagree with this. But my reasoning is simple: Conflict of interest. At the end of the day, the corporation has to protect its own interests and also make money. When I think of an open-source project, I think of open-source first. A corporation cannot think that way.

Richard Stallman has talked about this over and over. He also has very distinct views and is very opinionated, but in many senses, he is right. "Open Source" seems to be getting abused by corporations more and more and used to market and create dependencies on them. Not for me.

Screeeeech, throw on the breaks... Before I get flamed for saying open-source software is bad and that it's bad that Microsoft and Facebook back it... I'm not saying that; I'm happy that Microsoft has backed OS projects and even open-sourced much of their code. However, what I said above still stands on the moral of the story deep down.

I honestly have to agree. This is also why I tend to get fairly "offensive" in certain discussions myself, when it comes to frameworks like Angular. It's a product of Google (in collaboration with Microsoft as well.)

"Open source" used to stand for something completely different back in the day.

That meaning is still retained in much smaller projects, but when it comes to the ones that are supported with the resources they need to grow efficiently, it becomes a crap shoot. Much like what happened with AngularJS (post Angular 2 and Angular 4.)

The ability for an enormous company to decide to introduce and eventually derail, not only an open source project - but the personal investment put into it by the public - is rather disheartening. And, the majority flocks to it like sheep in a herd - always being vocal about "big business", only to put their entire career track and a large portion of their skill set behind the exact thing they seem to oppose.

Inside my odd-mind, I have labelled this the "Era of Trends" - since I feel we've become lazy and disloyal. Instead of coming up with long-term solutions, they've become quite short-term and eventually lifeless from day one no matter who supports them - since the backbone is based on platforms created by billion dollar companies so it becomes a necessity to anyone who wants to try their best at reaching a real-life milestone or goal.

Tommy Hodgins

CSS & Element Queries

Aug 25, 2017

I don't think so, Facebook has always been hostile when it comes to sharing, so I think their attitude toward open-source is just a symptom of them fundamentally not understanding it. Sure, they've benefitted from open-source and built their business on it, but pretty much all code they release comes with the same problematic License + Patent grant combination that React does.

This is just Facebook being Facebook…

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Will Facebook/React patent concerns create longer term skepticism in adopting open source libraries from larger corporations in general?

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