Free Software is an established term, and React certainly is not Free Software, due to its patent. I very much doubt that React is Open Source either, for the same reason.
So react is MIT-licensed and has a patent. How do those two work together? If I modify React's source-code might I not infringe on the patent and then get sued by Meta?
I’m not a lawyer, but from my perspective, that’s indeed a concern. And perhaps you could get sued just by using React. It could differ between jurisdictions as well.
A standard open source license with a patent grant, like the Apache license, would have been a lot clearer, but Facebook has so far refused to license React in that way.
A problematic patent grant was offered for earlier versions of React but that’s not the case anymore (and didn’t really fix the problem anyway).
I'm not a lawyer either and I wonder about the scope of Apache patent grant. Does it give you the right to use any patents the software in question "uses" in any possible context? Or does it simply allow you to modify the software any way you like and not get sued for infringement? But then how much can I modify it and still retain the right to use those patents? I mean if I create a totally unrelated software package which however shares some code with the original work, can I keep on using those patents anyway I want?
