[mygo]

I think you're missing the plot. Currently, there is a big philosophical debate on whether OSS licenses like the BSD include an implicit patent grant. When Facebook explicitly includes a revocable patent grant, your argument of the BSD license "with no patent grant" is self-fulfilling. But if the PATENTS file had never existed, then what you have is "a BSD license with a potentially implicit patent grant", which has never been tried in court so could set a precedence, but is waaaay better for the consumer than a "BSD license with no patent grant because that patent grant has been explicitly granted and now revoked".

[chrisco255]

To me it's sort of a toss up between these two scenarios. Implicit grant that has never been tried in court vs explicit grant that only gets revoked if I initiate a patent war?

[mygo]

In both scenarios you have a patent grant before going to court over Patents. The difference is that, in one scenario, you no longer have a patent grant once you go to court. In the other scenario (where PATENTS file never exists), you may still have the patent grant after court.

[IanKelling]

I see. Thanks for the information.