Next week, we will relicense our open source projects React, Jest, Flow, and Immutable. Js under the MIT Open Source license. We changed the open source agreements for these projects because React is critical to the open source software ecosystem and we didn’t want non-technical reasons to stand in the way of technological progress.
After weeks of frustration and uncertainty in our community following the React protocol change, we decided to change the protocol again. We are still confident that the BSD + patent certificate will benefit users of our open source projects, but we have to admit that the community does not approve of it.
As a result of having second thoughts about our open source protocol, many teams have started picking alternative libraries for React. I’m really sorry to cause such a disturbance. We don’t expect to bring these teams back to React, but we do want to embrace the community and make sure people feel comfortable using our open source projects. In the open source world, friendly cooperation and competition can promote common progress, and we are willing to participate fully.
With the new protocol changes, there are bound to be questions about Facebook’s other open source projects. Many of our popular projects will continue to use BSD + patent certificates. We are evaluating open source agreements for these projects, but each project is different and requires a combination of factors to decide which one to use.
We’ll be updating the open source license with React 16, which will be officially released next week. We’ve been working on React 16 for over a year. We completely rewrote the internal components to unlock powerful functionality for people to build larger user interfaces. We’ll share more details about rewriting React shortly. Whether you use React or not, we hope our work will inspire developers. Let’s take a break from the open source licensing debate and get back to what we care about most: how to make great products.