Mojang and the Bukkit Project

Discussion in 'Community News and Announcements' started by vubui, Sep 5, 2014.

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  1. Offline

    Relicum

    This may be the sign of Positive Mojang fight back to help resolve the situation. If it is, Then thanks Mojang.

    http://repo.bukkit.org/content/groups/public/org/bukkit/

    Check the dates of the minecraft-server repos; all added and compiled 2 days ago. Why would this be added if it was not to be used. This is every single MC-Dev version every created.

    I pray this is positive news . Thoughts ??
     
    NewsByShawn likes this.
  2. Offline

    flyguy23ndm

    I have not read all the 10 pages of this and I am not very experienced at legal stuff but I can code a bit and have looked at minecraft code. Now, from what I know, there is probably a capable, large enough, and sustainable group of coders on bukkit that could not only re-code craftbukkit from scratch, but re-code the minecraft server and all of minecraft from scratch. It's just an idea but as long as you use the same package names and class names with the same methods all the bukkit plugins will work with it (I think).
     
  3. Maybe, thoguh we probably disagree on individual details of it all.

    I still think (some of) the Bukkit team lead also appear to have been acting about as disgraceful as it can get, such that i can only ask:
    a) Does A apply (thought of some time before all this became apparent)?
    b) Does B apply (something completely different and mostly unrelated)?

    So to extend on "uncertainty" i have to comment on "bukkit is more than Minecraft":
    - Most players i know also play single player, at least on occasion, so if Bukkit is lost, some replacement will fill the gap, or it'll just all rewind with the Mod Plugin API, provided it'll not take forever.
    - The actual numbers are interesting, but usually are not included in "discussions" like happen here right now.

    Minecraft isn't Bukkit, it will most likely exist much longer than Bukkit, but the Bukkit people can try to "gain" maximum damage on it. I think this is a clear case:
    - If claim is valid: This has been a dead thing from the start no matter what Mojang does. Get rid of Bukkit.
    - If not valid: Reform Bukkit (pc formula).
     
  4. Offline

    avery1227

    16,595,693 people have bought the game. That makes the over all price $447253926.35

    In the last 24 hours, 10,318 people bought the game. That makes that $278070.1

    http://minecraft.net/stats
    The prices are just from the game minecraft. Not mojangs over all profits from minecon, other games, or events.

    So my point is they can hire people to do this for them. They let minecraft go in a grave once lets not see it again.
     
  5. Offline

    Jackobo

    Guys, have you tried to contact the Free Software Foundation ? These guys who created the GPL licence (FSF funded by Richard Stallman) can help you about this issue on the code.
     
  6. Offline

    Deleted user

    This post just making more people confused and is just pointing fingers at people
     
    BossEndorphin likes this.
  7. They can as well throw milk buckets at squids. These posts are missing several points.
    1. Mojang didn't want to interfere (you see what kind of things happend when people learn that they might interfere, though they haven't too much really).
    2. Without resolving the legal issues Mojang can only shut down Bukkit completely. And with resolving they might have to do the same (dead from start project, due to wrong licensing that would be).
    3. Those numbers are lies :). It's more complicated to calculate what they have and what they not have and what they can actually afford to do.
     
    Koeb likes this.
  8. Offline

    Deleted user

    Here is the link to the email he was talking about
     
  9. Offline

    avery1227

    asofold For legal issues they have enough money to resolve them within a week or less


    Also that is Mojangs numbers check the link https://minecraft.net/stats
    And thats just the PC/Mac version.
     
  10. A week thanks :).
    I am sure Mojang can do something, but currently they are blocked. Still those numbers are insufficient. i think i have posted about it before:
    and

    Edit: how to do spoiler?
     
  11. Offline

    Kaskadeking

    Thats only the Bukkit API. You can download the API from the orginal page: http://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/bukkit/
     
  12. Offline

    krisdestruction

    Chojun So what you're saying is that Mojang only has the right to reject any future pull requests with GPL right?
    Then in turn by Section 12 of the license, if the conditions imposed contradicts the license, Mojang/Bukkit has to stop "conveying" the covered works.
    It will make Mojang reconsider the consequences of it's actions and make better decisions moving forward.
    I have owned a server for 3.5 years, so your 1.5 years really dwindles in comparison. I'm sure many more people have owned a server for longer than I have, and I fully respect their stances on this topic. However, CB isn't the one you should be fearing. Instead it is Mojang you should really be fearing here.
    Resources don't cost that much and the main expense is typically coders and merchandise (which I assume makes a profit in itself). The typical software engineer salary is 71k so I'll let you do the math to come to the conclusion that Mojang currently has enough to pay it's coders for over 100 years.
    Great, if you acknowledge the license is incompatible, Mojang can remove the contributions and nullify the DMCA request as stated in Section 12 of GPL.

    desht I just wanted to say I have made good use of your past help posts and I have the upmost respect for your contributions to this community :)
     
    WyrdWyrd likes this.
  13. Offline

    Braylen

    I really can't help but wondering if this (being bad for Bukkit) is ultimately good for Realms, and therefore Mojang.

    As an example, I currently run a server for my kids and their friends; the kids all really want to use 1.8 of course, so now I'm wondering what to do. Do I wait this out - (updates had already been very slow, which they didn't get) or go ahead, drop bukkit and look for a new way to manage the server? I don't know if this legal action affects other tool kits or whatever, and my head hurts at the idea of starting over this research, and then possibly having it happen again with a different product. I'm not a programmer - I'm doing this to give my kids a safe environment where I can control griefing to some degree (I have kids from 7 - 14 playing).

    Oh wait, what's that? Wouldn't Realms simplify my life? It's ready to go, always up to date, and I would have an easy way to explain to them why I won't (now can't) add the super-nuke-everything-whatever mod they want. At some point they'll add richer mod support (maybe they have it now - I haven't checked).

    Very frustrating all around.
     
  14. Bukkit has been a magnet and there were other other magnets alongside, so i hope Mojang stays on top of these things and will do the right decisions, whatever those are. The moment when Bukkit got really big, it also became involved with a company (Curse), so it's a bit too simplistic to blame Mojang for the situation. It does depend on what the lawyers can reach, but to me this is an example of what not to support in future, because an open source project built on such a licensing ground, is just asking for trouble, yet ... the lawyers...

    Please don't do this number-not-know game, that's totally unclear. They can afford something, but that's just entirely not the point here, because they couldn't just inject a develper into Bukkit, and Bukkit can't be "the API". Once it is about money, they can certainly afford more developers (temporarily at least), but they do have do to calculate with money.
     
  15. Offline

    MuerteInHell

    Congratulations Wolvereness. I'm pretty sure you got the attention you wanted. Next time you want to get some attention could you please do it without sabotaging CraftBukkit? That would be nice. You know who's also losing valuable time and money because of your act? The server owners and their communities who evolved around this community. Thanks again. I'd love to meet you one day so we can talk about how important it is to show the world our ideas and principles! And to some of the others, good luck with your witch hunt against Mojang. I'm sure this is the right way forward! Thank god I didn't spent countless of hours of my time on writing any modifications for CraftBukkit! If I had this all would have really messed me up!
     
  16. Offline

    LEOcab

    So... when is Bukkit 1.8 coming out?
    when is Bukkit 1.8 coming out?
    is Bukkit 1.8 coming out?
    Bukkit 1.8 coming out?
    1.8 coming out?
    coming out?
    out?
    ?

    By the way, who the hell is vubui? I've never heard of him. Why is he suddenly in charge?
     
  17. Offline

    Niall7459

    I don't blame Wesley, he put his heart into coding this project, and now just to find out that Mojang owns it.
    I would be pretty disappointed.
     
    DHLF likes this.
  18. Offline

    krisdestruction

    Following what desht said, I do not deny that Bukkit had it's own problems with operating. Wolverness is not Bukkit and this is a separate issue altogether. For reasons I specified with implications of Mojang's actions, this is why I believe a lot of blame falls to Mojang (#BlameMojang anyone? lol). It's not asking for trouble if the project remains open source. Conflicts tend to start when proprietary mixes with open source.
    A few things. Yes, Mojang can pump more devs into it's PluginAPI project. Yes, it can support Bukkit, even though it is not "the API" it is one of many APIs, but it is the one that makes Mojang the most money. It is about the money, I would think Mojang is losing sales because of their recent decisions.
    lol....
    But on a more serious note read his signature.
     
  19. Offline

    CodeOmar


    You are incorrect. Mojang only has to convey the "covered work" under the terms of the GPL, and according to the GPL, "covered work" means the original work or works based on it. Minecraft is not based on CraftBukkit or Bukkit, so Minecraft does not have to be distributed under the terms of the GPL. CraftBukkit, however, is based on Minecraft. Using binary blobs to create (L)GPL licensed software is fine. It's done all the time when someone writes GPL licensed software for OS X or Windows and uses the functionality of the operating system to make their program work. It's also done when the Linux kernel needs to use proprietary firmware for some piece of hardware. It's generally impossible to distribute GPL licensed software if the binary blob is embedded inside it (usually due to the lack of permission to distribute the binary blob, but also it must be possible to separate the GPL components from the proprietary ones), but that's a simple packaging issue that can be resolved by just distributing the binary blob as a separate DLL (or JAR file in this case), possibly bundled in the same .zip file. I'm not convinced that even needs to happen though, as a JAR file is just a .zip file and the code derived from Minecraft is in a completely separate directory.
     
  20. Offline

    jamescowens

    This is in response to Vu and the rest of the community.

    My take is everyone is panicking over the DMCA takedowns and acting hastily and emotionally in the wrong ways. Being the CEO of a $50 million revenue, 320 person company, I have had to develop the instincts of when to make rapid decisions versus when to be deliberate. Usually, hasty and emotional decisions are bad all the way around in these sort of situations. Sometimes the right answer is a few concrete short term actions that restore temporary equilibrium and provide some breathing room for longer term contemplation and solutions.

    In particular, this situation requires both deliberation about the bigger picture, but some immediate short term action to restore confidence. The problem is that many folks and critical downstream projects are already reacting and shutting down/considering moving other APIs. My sense is that Mojang does not have much time left to take short term actions to prevent a complete collapse of a large part of the Bukkit community, and therefore the underpinnings of most public, commercial Minecraft servers.

    I have been following this pretty closely, so let me give you my perspective, for what it is worth:

    1. I have read all of the arguments about whether Wesley was in the right or not concerning his stance on the GPL/LGPL of Bukkit/Craftbukkit. My sense is that he probably is *technically* right, although his ability to enforce this after he participated willingly in the project knowing that they were including a closed source jar from Minecraft (even in partially deobfuscated form) puts him on the wrong side of history and severely weakens his standing in any court of law. In effect his actions in the repository pulls could be interpreted to be a willful violation of his own license!
    2. If Wesley intends to sue anybody, it will take time and money to do that… just like it does to defend against such action. My guess is that is really not his intent. I think he just wants to throw a general monkey wrench in the whole thing. In any case, legal action in court is a relatively slow moving thing, not something that is going to happen overnight. I realize that there are other developers that are in the same position as Wesley, so that also makes the potential scope larger, but that also gives Mojang more of an incentive to fix the problem. It is difficult to conceive of how the argument will be constructed in a court of law by Wesley or any other developer plaintiff regarding significant damages in the Craftbukkit snafu. What actual harm. monetary or otherwise, have they incurred? Any case is likely to be thrown out as frivolous. If anything, Mojang has a claim that they have been harmed by the use of their closed source code, but they have already made it clear they support Bukkit, and would not press a claim like that. It would be difficult for them anyway since they purchased (part of) Bukkit.
    3. Too much work has been done – probably hundreds of thousands of man-hours by hundreds of contributors to hundreds, if not thousands, of plugins – to throw Bukkit away. Many of these plugins are extremely sophisticated, such as the Essentials, WorldEdit, Worldguard, Factions, Dynmap, Prism, and the like and are essential to the operation of a public Minecraft server. A new, different API implementation is going to be an effective disaster, although some, like Dynmap, have been written with their own wrapper API to support multiple server APIs and already support multiple server implementations.
    a. There have been sentiments expressed by folks at Spigot and Cauldron about contacting plugin developers to move them over to Canary or pure Forge. This is laudable but probably unrealistic.
    b. Many plugin developers don’t like Forge, which seems to be least affected, though. That’s one of the reasons why they used the Bukkit API. My own stance is that they are complimentary, but that is just me. Bukkit has the distinct advantage of working with an un-modified client.
    c. My sense is that many developers are experiencing fatigue at all of the changes that have occurred in Minecraft already, and having to rewrite plugins from the ground up is probably going to have many of them throw in the towel. Plus many, after having been burned with Bukkit, are going to be super cautious about spending time with any API that has not been vetted and blessed by the whole community (including Mojang).
    d. Many servers, including my own, rely on 40+ plugins, some more important than others, of course. Some of those plugin developers are somewhat inactive. Just for me, the idea of the timeframe when all of the plugins I currently have would be converted over, along with the inevitable testing and bug fixing that has to occur just to get back to where I am today… well that leaves me shuddering. It could be years… and I don’t have the time. I really did this as a labor of love for my three children, and got hooked… but as you can see, I have a day job… so do most other people that participate in the community.
    e. Commercial, public Minecraft servers are in a much worse situation regarding this, and many of them don’t have the time or resources to do the switch, and they cannot accept even a temporary loss of functionality and remain running in any viable form.
    f. The community has not even reached the stage where people have truly agreed on a substitute API for Bukkit, and we don’t really know Mojang’s true position on the matter. Further the official API has not been released - and appears to be delayed indefinitely. By the time it comes around it will be too late, everyone will be gone.
    4. The community needs Mojang to make clear statements and take definitive, positive actions in way that restores equilibrium.
    a. If Mojang believes Wesley’s claims unfounded, as has been stated,, then they should have no problem reopening the Git repositories and Craftbukkit downloads, and they should do this immediately to restore confidence.
    b. Mojang needs to reconsider their stance on their Minecraft server jar remaining closed source.
    c. Mojang is not a startup anymore. They make literally tons of money off of subscriptions, not licensing their code. They also have looked the other way for years while their code has been decompiled and reverse engineered, effectively distributed in the open. They have bought into that (literally) with their acquisition of Bukkit and employment of some of Bukkit's developers.
    d. Perhaps Mojang should consider open sourcing the minecraft server jar under a custom license, or perhaps writing a wrapper implementation to act as a bridge between the abstract API of Bukkit and the core minecraft server? (This is effectively a reimplementation of craftbukkit, not bukkit.)
    e. Perhaps there are other solutions. Clearly part of the problem is that Mojang is not doing a great job communicating with the community in this matter and managing this issue, which is something they really need to work on - fast!
    f. Conversely, the community fighting with Mojang and walking away in a tantrum is not going to solve this problem. Remember, at the end of the day, Minecraft itself is Mojang's.
    5. There have been many in the community that are advocating the creation of a server that is totally free of Mojang’s control, perhaps by adapting Glowstone.. I think that is naïve. Again, like it or not, Minecraft is Mojang’s. Even if a clean room server were to be built, (Glowstone is the leading candidate), it has to be completely compatible with the Minecraft client, which is still evolving. My sense is that maintaining compatibility as Mojang makes further changes will be difficult at best. Trying to rewrite the Minecraft client too to effectively create a complete Minecraft substitute would put the community in direct confrontation with Mojang, and would result in Mojang taking legal action- and anyway- who is going to use such a thing, practically speaking? The Minecraft logins and subscription infrastructure are all controlled by Mojang. This would turn out like the Moonlight/Mono situation for the Microsoft .net platform on Linux - a lot of well meaning, but wasted, effort in the end.
    6. If we all don’t calm down and take a collective breath, the hasty actions we are taking may actually contribute towards what is effectively a complete collapse – which I don’t think is in anyone’s best interest.

    It seems the best, concrete, first action to take at the moment would be for Mojang to restore Craftbukkit GIts and downloads and then get out in front of the problem officially. Mojang then needs to create an official conference with the leading voices of the community to jointly decide where to go from there, and also provide concrete milestones on the implementation of the official modding API that has been long delayed, along with a reasonable migration path to get there.

    I believe we all agree that we don't want Minecraft to go down the drain. Our kids love this game but are largely oblivious to this destructive shockwave that is spreading across the community now. I'm not sure if they knew what was happening they would approve of the way this is being handled. Those of us that are older but participate in the community love it too, but for different reasons. Let's save it before it is too late, for us and our children.

    Best regards,

    James Owens
     
    bluekelp, Pythros, DHLF and 2 others like this.
  21. Wolvereness is/was Bukkit too and his actions represent Bukkit-team lead decisions as well. If Mojang "owning stuff" is a factor for the law-games i can't tell, it might be that you are right on that aspect. However i don't see more than "let's fuck Mojang" here. You might actually have to blame all former Bukkit lead people, including EvilSeph for going the way with Curse and doing the contracts with Mojang - so if you go there, go there hard and distinguish what's Mojang and what not. But you are still right in distinguishsing actions of EvilSeph from those of Wolverness.

    "Most money" is contestable, Bukkit may have become the fat magnet for server owners, but believe me, most will use something else instead, though it'll be a big hazzle. Mojang earns with players buying the game in the first place.

    Maybe acquiring rights to anything within Bukkit was a mistake, but you fail to cover the alternatives, which seem to be at least problematic, e.g.:
    - Not acquire rights: Maybe impossible due existing contracts.
    - Not acquire developers: Totally different story, probably was a mistake?
    - Make public right away: Maybe better, but maybe also the death-strike of the whole thing.

    I can't exclude that some active/side-step/follow-up core contributors have been tricked / deceived by the Bukkit team lead about the nature of the project since back then, howerver with the uncertain licensing situation, Mojang could have stopped it at any given point of time anyway. That's also why i don't like these people claiming "all of Minecraft" and "the community", because they're simply not.
     
  22. Offline

    buckwild307

    I feel like you were just neglecting us and leaving out the info.
     
    KevinABC96 likes this.
  23. Offline

    FatherWh0


    I don't normally stoop to the level you are running here with childish “mine is bigger than yours” attitudes, but you sir have misquoted me. I did not state that I was afraid of CB. My statement, if an intelligent person was reading it, clearly shows that I simply feared the future as things were looking unstable and CB project's future WAS unknown.

    Congratulations on having a server 2 years before I did. I suppose this is the part where I bow to your awesomeness. However, since I've been a professional computer technician for over 20 years, I do not need your approval to understand where I stand or who I am.

    You, my friend, are a child. You have pulled the same brag that every little kid pulls in MC. “How long have you been playing? I've been playing since alpha. NOOOOOOB!”

    I bow to you with the tip of my sword.

    I've read 10 pages of misunderstandings, misquotes, flames and just plain hate mongering. This is part where I look at the human race and face-palm.

    Go back and read the Q&A in my post. Then read Relicum's post. Follow his link, and download the very recently coded newest snapshot of CB. If you don't understand to stop flaming Mojang at that point, then please understand this.

    THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER! Things can now return to normal. Well, Minecraft version of normal anyway, lol.

    For the love of god, someone close this thread!


    P.S. Krisdestruction will reply to this with childish flames. I will neither read nor respond.
     
  24. Offline

    Necrodoom

    FatherWh0 Bukkit =/= Craftbukkit.
    Bukkit hasnt been DMCA'd, Craftbukkit is.
     
  25. Offline

    _LB

    There's always the Glowstone Bukkit server implementation, which doesn't use any Minecraft server code at all.

    http://www.glowstone.net/
     
    DamienMine, Zupsub and KingFaris11 like this.
  26. Offline

    KillerKozmo

    OMG. What client am I suppost to be using for my server with over 3000+ people this is very disappointing and I am very mad, I don't know what to do.
     
  27. Offline

    catbox01

    Wow are there some holes in OPs statement. First of all, I note the words "however they were effectively given to us." That is a huge waffle. Either the bukkit project was bought and paid for by Mojang (and I remember a comment about keeping the receipt around as proof) from individuals who were not bound by the free source limitations, and had authority to sell (in which case Mojang became solely responsible for its content and inclusions), or contributions were made under the open sources agreement, an agreement which can be seen as binding between Mojang and contributors, recognizing their control over their contributions; in which case, the whole issue of ownership is thrown into question. Furthermore, why would Mojang have obtained rights to something they did not want to control? That argument makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, it even works in favor of their opponents argument, since the entire community and certainly Mojang were very much aware of the composition of Bukkit, and the code on which Bukkit relied. If you own something, you may include whatever you want in it, are responsible for the inclusion, and can in no way argue that you were not aware, and did not authorize it. In fact, at that point, it isn't even an issue. I see Mojang hedging their bets here to cover multiple possible outcomes.

    As part of its legal arguments, Mojang has stated that bukkit was purchased and then ignored. I find that rather hard to believe after Dinnerbone? announced that he was working on the 1.8 release of the project. Starting from scratch, the Mojang team hasn't been able to come up with an API in two years. And now someone who allegedly has had nothing to do with the project since bukkit was"acquired" is going to throw it together in short order?

    How does that fit with this statement?

    "Mojang hasn’t contributed to the Bukkit Project and, therefore, the official Minecraft Server software we make available is not subject to the applicable open source licenses."

    Since when is purchase not considered to be a contribution? If bukkit is owned by Mojang, and Wesley has no legal claim to ownership or compensation, how does this fly? If Dinnerbone has in ANY way worked on it, then the statement is invalid.

    "Wesley has no right to prevent the continued use of his contributions to the project – which he gave freely, knowing them to be subject to applicable open source licenses. We believe these licenses continue to bind all those who contributed to the Bukkit Project. "

    Gentlemen, you cannot have it both ways. Now, I'm not saying that I would want to see the demise of the Bukkit project, but nor am I saying that the question of legal ownership is entirely clear. Furthermore, I suspect Bukkit was "obtained" to help jump-start the promised API. That didn't work out, but it doesn't change the fact that you wanted a look at it, to use all or part of it, if possible, and have clearly "kept up" ever since. It isn't an accident that "Bukkit" was "obtained" around the same time the API development was announced. Why all the cloak and dagger? Why didn't you keep it all out in the open?

    Frankly, there's a lot of BS flying around. And not all of it is coming from Wesley. I think this needs to be sorted out by a court of law; particularly given the evasive and contradictory statements of the Mojang representatives. I sincerely hope that all parties have access to a more qualified representation than the OP.

    I do want to point out one more thing:
    Had Mojang kept its promise about developing an API, none of this would have been necessary.
     
    filbert66 and Relicum like this.
  28. But you can't use any plugins that don't safely use NMS or OBC. :(
     
  29. Offline

    _LB

    Do you see now why resorting to using underlying implementation code is bad? Had those plugins instead contributed new API to Bukkit, this would be less of a problem. But there's nothing anyone can do about that at this moment in time, unfortunately.
     
    KingFaris11 likes this.
  30. Not practical for all:
    - PR handling was and still is slow. Non crucial additions sit for two years, core additions take months. Not blaming people for not having enough people to handle stuff, but for not developing working concepts for adding core stuff faster (managed default pull requests and early open discussion, limited lifetime or deprecated by default API, altering the update process, to have more people working on individual parts, short-term teams). There sure are lots of possibilities, i just don't remember an official/open discussion taking place about such.
    - Some features those plugins need, are just not "appealing enough" to get much attention. The amount of work to put in to get these people to start adding links to a "contributing.md" instead of "fuck off noob" already was terrifying (> 20 seconds or so).
    - Would we be double-betrayed now?

    Honestly you maybe right about some/many plugins, and let's see another positive side: the glowstone implementation doesn't have much need to claim all-and-ever volatile internals, they could afford a limited lifetime API better than CB/Bukkit. The negative side might be that it's not sure it can survive either...
     
    KingFaris11 and NathanWolf like this.
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