Mojang and the Bukkit Project

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

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  1. Offline

    MasterDoctor

    Thank you so much! This really helps.
    A suggestion: Anyone takes any copies of bukkit that the have an upload them to another server.
     
  2. Offline

    Darthkatzs

    Who hired this guy?
     
    KingFaris11 and AronTheGamer like this.
  3. Offline

    mechanicaljack

    The most important question, I think, is how is Mojang defining their ownership? In clear terms, not the vague response that started this discussion.

    What exactly does Mojang own here? This conversation cannot progress constructively so long as that is something you have to assume or guess at. This is the question we all need an answer to -from Mojang-.
     
  4. It's not included, that's claimed to be the case legally and it makes sense. For CraftBukkit a byte code jar archive (not sure it counts as binary) is decompiled and then added to CraftBukkit, partly in an altered way. That's for sure not the original Minecraft server code, though you could discuss what you want to be seen as original, if you want software copyright at all, if you want licenses at all and all such things. Currently lawyers are busy i guess...

    Could be, but i think part of what happens now is also what would have happened then. There is a lot of uncertainty to treat for the case of the plugin API being there...
    - Would CB include it directly? (This isn't 100% trivial because both APIs used by multiple plugins can lead to cross-API and cross-plugin trouble of unknown kind.)
    - If CB includes the Plugin API, will Mojang allow it that way?
    - What happens if CB does not include the Mojang API or puts it into a versioned package breaking every so and so release? Will Mojang allow it? Will the plugin developers like that?
    - Would CB be removed by Mojang, the sharks way, e.g. by wcdma takedown or whatever that abbreviations is?

    Given the "ownership" question being such a hazzle, i am afraid it would not have been much better, but can't know.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2016
  5. Offline

    SirPsp

    I really hope Mojang aren't reading through these comments.
    You all sound like butthurt little kids.
    Here's an idea: stop complaining and actually support the game which you've enjoyed enough to become part of this community.

    I've been playing Minecraft since Indev and I don't think Mojang has made a wrong decision for the game yet. Leave it to them to sort this out.

    (I saw some comments saying Minecraft wouldn't be popular without Bukkit, this is @ them):
    I've also been running a server since 2010 and only switched to Bukkit at version 1.7 (because another server mod stopped). If bukkit is shut down, it's not the end of Minecraft. People will still play. Servers will still exist. There will be other server software.
    Also, the console Minecraft sales are higher than PC; Minecraft does not depend on Bukkit.

    Keep up the good work Mojang. Easily my favourite game of all time.
     
  6. Offline

    jonoaa


    Firstly there was a typo in my original post, so I'll edit that part. :/

    Secondly I'm not quitting the game or leaving Bukkit. I'm not bothered that much about the EULA or 1.8, It's all this legal stuff that's been going on. I'm just thanking the developers who coded Bukkit until this point, because at the moment it's not really going anywhere with progress or information.

    And finally, I did not read the previous comments.
     
  7. Offline

    AronTheGamer

    For me, it's clear. The Minecraft Community will die. How Mojang tried to make everything better, people abused it and made a big drama out of it. I wanna show my respect to servers that have followed the changes in a mature way (Hypixel.net for example).

    I will head over to a new game: Cubition.
     
    Milkywayz likes this.
  8. Offline

    krisdestruction

    sk89q is the author of WorldEdit, WorldGuard, and CommandBook. This is my stance on things as well.
    http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_the_original_contributors_to_bukkit/

    FatherWh0 My point is how long you own a server doesn't matter, so don't start bringing years of server admin into the discussion. Please don't take that statement the wrong way.

    Wolvereness is not Bukkit, he was not a lead, he was not looped into the decision that Mojang owned Bukkit, and he was not part of the compilation process. He did make code contributions. Refer to sk89's post.

    And these people buy it to play with friends or join a server which only exists because it runs on Bukkit. Unless they're purely using Forge (not MCMP, Forge), then my point doesn't apply to this small percentage of servers.

    I would love to discuss alternatives.
    - Not acquire rights: Contracts can be cancelled, rights can be waived.
    - Not acquire developers: PluginAPI would have probably released by now and not taken 4 years with no result.
    - Make public right away: CB would be available, and they can still contribute to CB if they want to update it to 1.8. However this directly conflicts with Mojang's stated desire to keep it proprietary, which is respectfully their right.

    I cannot confirm if Mojang could stop them at any time. I would believe it and sk89q seems to state that too.
     
  9. Offline

    extended_clip

    I am about over this drama.
     
  10. Offline

    Leviathanss

    R.I.P Craftbukkit which in turn will mean R.I.P Minecraft.
     
  11. Offline

    WithinRafael

  12. Offline

    Shaggy67

    Many people seem to be jumping to the conclusion that Mojang is claiming ownership of the community code, which I don't think is what Mojang means when they say they own bukkit. For some, I think this is a genuinely confusing topic, for others I suspect it's a strawman that they can use as an easy Mojang punching bag.

    Think about what the original Bukkit Team owned when they were originally hired by Mojang. They owned the copyright to their own contributions to bukkit, they owned the hosting accounts for the forums, repository, etc. They likely owned a trademark on the bukkit name.... etc. Those are the things that Mojang now owns.

    To claim that Mojang owns the copyright on all of the community contributed code would be ridiculous, and Mojang knows that as well as anyone else does.
     
  13. I don't share that view, though a complex law-thing might boil down to that, i still think that's overly simplistic.
    I don't refer to Curse/Mojang/buy but how things were run, he was very present as a lead developer with direct access. I may mix too many things though, he probably wasn't involved in the Bukkit-team lead, but in the design and pull-request decisions. Let me repeat - he may be technically or by law allowed to do this, but in my opinion it's a big mistake, that he is able to do this in the first place - this also would fall on Mojang if it gets through, concerning their decisions of acquiring things that way back then. All in all the project probably is just not durable enough by design and by how it was managed, making this a case of "free software" vs. "the big bad company" is pretty idiotic. Again, we don't know all circumstances (Curse, state of Bukkit internally), and it's not ended yet, it's just burning.
    Don't overestimate Bukkit either. It's cool, it's big, it's bang, but really there is and will be others. The players don't care much if it's Bukkit, most don't even know. Don't misunderstand me, i would prefer Bukkit to exist, but i don't blame Mojang ahead of knowing more, if it should die now. I see the Bukkit team (lead) on the side of not communicating well, not integrating well either, maybe i am blaming them a little more than necessary (ahead of knowing more), but they needlessly ran other things onto the wall before, so my jaws aren't 100% bound concerning that. This could be due to Mojang preventing them to, but i don't see that active role of Mojang there, yet.
    Discuss them :). My point is, that Mojang had to take decisions there, another company was involved (which still is foggily ignored by some people), i can not judge it. Could be Mojang made mistakes, by letting it run there, but it would have meant influencing the project the hard way on half-way here, which could've resulted in about the same situation. It may have been a simple situation similar to what some think, but simple situations are dangerous too, e.g. if you make too simple decisions, or too complex ones, e.g. acquiring more than you need (more than the devlopers), because you want to be able to keep Bukkit up (good will actually), now it backfires.
    Pretty sure they can try to kill them off, in any case they can prevent any mods for say Minecraft 1.9. There could be law suits, but then you are on the short (and expensive) end of fighting.


    Now that i am still at fairy tales, i should probably take a break and watch where the fallout is coming down...
     
  14. Offline

    krisdestruction

    We want bukkit to be open source and Mojang to rightfully respect open source. Yes I would assume if we approve of Bukkit's DMCA, SpigotMC's DMCA would also be approved. I am on their forums as well.
    I think this is pretty good, but you're right, he summarized the legalities of it. However which part of the legal stuff did you believe isn't valid?
    Thanks for clarifying your position. I guess we each hold our beliefs, mine being that it's his right to do it, and it's to demonstrate to Mojang that you do not fight the community. Regarding your "free software" vs. "the big bad company", I want to let you know that I have mostly defended proprietary rights of companies, I still do and Mojang is no different. Mojang has the right to proprietary right, and in all fairness, they can hire more people with the money they make. However, they don't. I don't view Mojang as "the big bad company", I just view them as "the bad and stupid company".
    I would prefer that Bukkit exists too were it not for Mojang owning Bukkit. Possibly, but if what you say is true about Mojang preventing them, then this is mismanagement and bad decision making on Mojang's part.
    Well that's essentially my stance on them :) I'd be happy to discuss more if you had a specific topic in mind. Are you referring to Curse? I'm not (and have not) really ever cared to look into what Curse had with Bukkit as it didn't impact my ability to run my server. All I know is that Curse somehow provides hosting to Bukkit. However I still wouldn't see why Curse would impact their decisions, perhaps I'm wrong. Yes, simple decisions could lead to complicated situations, and I agree Mojang is in a tight spot. Although we can get a sense of what Mojang has at it's disposal, I don't know how far the Plugin API is and what they are planning for Bukkit. They're just not transparent enough, unlike the SpigotMC community who put their stance up immediately.
    I agree that the community is on the short and expensive end of fighting. However I do believe that Wesley Wolfe would be able to win in court with the understanding I have now. Everyone has their own understanding and obviously you wouldn't know what the jury decides.
    Don't forget to bring popcorn :p
     
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  15. Offline

    ryanamol

    Will we ever get to download bukkit again? I was really hoping we could.
     
  16. Offline

    smbarbour

    His position is greatly harmed by his contributions to both the CraftBukkit and mc-dev repositories.
     
  17. Offline

    krisdestruction

    Possibly, but again I still see it as two different separate issues. If Mojang wants to file a counter suit based on "unauthorized modification/distribution" against all CraftBukkit contributors, that's up to them.
     
  18. Offline

    neone

    Because of this, thousands of Minecraft Servers around the globe cannot update Craftbukkit to Minecraft version 1.8

    Asking money from Moyang for your project its what you want and blaming Mojang for what they didn't done its your opinion but if you ask me Moyang could close this and lot of other projects like this long time ago if they don't want you to make mods for their software just like Activision did for Call of Duty after CoD2 they stop with map editor and now people enjoy playing what they get not what they want. Moyang can also close all of your servers that runs on your hosting because its their right to do it just like other game developers did you can play their games online over steam, origin etc.. So you get all this freedom and you still complain!! you started DMCA war for what ??? this is Open Source project witch means its free for you to contribute to a project but not claim that this project is yours read github rules before you start a project.. I'm glad that Mojang was so clever to buy bukkit project by doing that they contributed by keeping this site alive otherwise some individual would close site claiming that site is his and ruin all the effort of good people who contributed to bukkit project and to us who love their work. Im already tired of all of this and all I want is craftbukkit 1.8 so cammon people remove that silly DMCA we want 1.8 today!!!!
     
  19. Offline

    xXCryptoFreakXx

    It's depressing to see Mojang fall

    Especially since they're dragging Bukkit down with them
     
  20. Isn't it the other way round, rather?
     
  21. Offline

    KevinABC96

    Mojang is like all companies, greedy and capitalistic.
    We should stop worshipping them for giving us Minecraft, and let them feel consequences for their latest actions.
     
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  22. Offline

    Sycoduck

    Does That mean that bukkit/spigot too are not allowed the make server upgrades to newer minecraft versions
     
  23. Offline

    JorgTheElder

    ROFL... . For anything like that to ever be decided it would have to go to court and since the "code" in question is a deobfuscated/decompiled/modified version and not contributed by Mojang, the only thing that would actually happn in court is all copies of CraftBukkit would be proven unlicensed and the project would die.

    The exact same thing goes for Mojang, and just like Mojang has done for the past 3 years, every contributor could choose to ignore the invalid license and let the project continue.

    It never had a valid license and never will. Whether or not that kills the project is up to the IP owners.

    That is absolutely correct. And if Wesley would let it, it could continue as a successful project with an invalid license for as long as all the IP owners agree to let it. Mojang could have DMCA'd it 3 years ago. If Wesley actually cared about the community, he would let it continue to exist.

    LOL... that is not how it works.

    So far they are not even part of the DMCA take down, only the hosting site it.

    If this is ever even LOOKS like it is going to court all Mojang has to do is say 'WOW, you are right. This project does not have a valid license. We agree with Wesley, kill the project."

    Is that what you really want?

    You could not be more wrong. Mojang does not grant any rights by letting CraftBukkit exist with an invalid license. It just does not work that way.

    If _anyone_ tries to take that to court, Mojang will just say "Wow, you are right CraftBukkit does not have a valid license, we agree with Wesley, kill it!"

    LOL.. your threats are completely empty. They will hurt the developers feeling yes, but do nothing to the bottom line of Mojang.

    The PS3 and Xbox version of Minecraft has sold over 54 million copies. The Xbox One and PS4 versions have just been released. Do you really think the CraftBukkit community can hurt them? Dream on.

    If the Bukkit IP owners (the community does not get a vote) will let the project continue with a broken license, it will. If however, they try to take this to court and so somehow force the project into compliance, the project will die. There is no other possible result.

    Nope.. it is up to Wesley and the other contributors. They can either let it live with an invalid license (as everyone involved has since its inception) or they can cause it to die. It will never make it to court as the folks responsible for the daily management of the project (NOT Mojang formally) will just let Wesley win and kill the project.

    Close, but no cigar.

    1. Minecraft owns Bukkit. Bukkit is does not contain any infringing code that we know of. Bukkit is still available for download, it is CraftBukkit that we are talking about.

    2. Companies CAN violate their own copyright, it happens all the time. When it comes up, they just have say "oh, you are right, we should top doing that."

    3. The GPL and other license in question cover distribution. Mojang does not distribute Bukkit or CraftBukkit, it is a project on its own site. The DMCA takedowns were not sent to Mojang they were they were send to the entity hosting the repository.

    All this means that Mojang cannot be touched. Pressing the issue will simply kill the CraftBukkit project winch will in effect kill the Bukkit project unless some other project that I am not away up implements it.

    If Wesley wins, the Bukkit community loses and CraftBukkit dies.

    Why do they need the FSF? They have succeeded in getting distribution of CraftBukket stopped. If they do not rescind their DMCA take down, they win and CraftBukkit dies as a project. Yay team.

    *Note that "they" as of today is "Wesley, on of the CraftBukkit contributors, not Mojang. If Wesley wins, CraftBukkit dies.

    It cannot be resolved in court. If it goes to court, CraftBukkit dies. Wesley's legal claims are quite true. CraftBukkit does not meet the requirements of the LGPL or GPL.

    There are only three ways that CraftBukkit can continue to exist:

    1. Mojang releases grants the CraftBukkit entity the right to distribute the derivitieves of minecraft_server.jar that are in the project under the LGPL or another compatible license. (NEVER GONNA HAPPEN.)

    2. All of the contributors to CraftBukkit grant Mojang a distribution license for their contributions to CraftBukkit so that it can be released under a proprietary license. (The can still keep their ownership.)

    3. All the IP owners (Mojang + CraftBukkit contributors) agree to let is continue as is without a valid license. This has worked for 3 years already and Mojang has already alluded to allowing this.

    Now, you tell me, which of those is likely to happen? If you answer is NONE, CraftBukkit is dead.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2016
  24. Offline

    krisdestruction

    JorgTheElder Please edit your posts next time instead of posting 8+ times :) Also, quote your sources. We have no idea who you're replying to.
    Could have, but didn't. Minecraft didn't so that's their loss.
    Mojang would have killed the project eventually, it is only a matter of when. At the core, those against Mojang are simply stating that Wesley Wolfe is entitled to do it. What Mojang deserves is another matter.[/quote]
    I think you took this out of context, I'm sure he meant the Bukkit project as a whole.
    Most licenses/EULAs as with Mojang's EULA have an authorization clause. When challenged, any company would simply say it was an authorized use of IP.
    Mojang is the parent entity that manages the distribution through their transaction as they own the management of the site and the project.
    This whole DMCA is to show that Mojang can be touched. Pressing the issue could lead to Mojang open sourcing their project. I agree it's very unlikely but it's to prove a point that there is some wiggle room in Mojang's decisions.
    No one is denying this.
     
  25. Offline

    flying sheep

    Wrong. Wesley’s code is under the LGPL. Craftbukkit can therefore use it when it is LGPL-compliant. The presence of non-(L)GPL-compatible Mojang code violates the LGPL, aka the terms of use for his code. Therefore, Craftbukkit’s use of his code infringes on his IP.
    This means that while Mojang has no obligation to put anything under the LGPL, not doing so keeps Craftbukkit in a state where every single of its 181 contributors can claim copyright infringement with the same reasons as Wesley.
    If Mojang puts the Minecraft server code in the Craftbukkit repo under the LGPL, (Craft)bukkit lives, else it dies. (Or rather it serves as repository for useful LGPL code that can be incorporated in, say, Glowstone)

    PS:
    I deny this. I say Wesleys goal was to make Mojang clarify the license situation so that Bukkit won’t stay under a legal Damocles sword forever.
     
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  26. Offline

    krisdestruction

    My apologies, I shouldn't be speaking for everyone. I should rephrase: I believe it is an unlikely case that Mojang will yield even though it would benefit the community thus leading to the closure of the Craft/Bukkit project. With that in mind, I completely agree with you.
     
  27. Offline

    rundmcarlson

    I love how mojang essentially is saying "We want to continue this free coding we are getting, you know, the stuff that is actually keeping players around, but we don't want any part of it, and certainly don't want to put our PAID employees to work on it." I mean why would they bother properly contributing to something they claim to stake ownership in when they could let the community do all the work for nothing.

    Fact of the matter is, without bukkit or modding, no one would play the stupid ass vanilla game for more than a week. MP and bukkit servers keep people playing and keep the game spreading. Without them, the game would fizzle out like most games. No one complains or says anything, but waiting weeks for server updates while the client is already taken care of is completely unreasonable. If Mojang "owns" bukkit, its nothing less than complete bullshit that bukkit doesn't have an official staff assignment and updates aren't on time with the client. I'm sure they can afford to hire some more staff with the insane amount of money they are making off of this poorly designed and optimized game. If they don't want to release any code, just close up bukkit and make it the official API. Then no open source, but you still have community contributions.
     
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  28. Offline

    flying sheep

    I speculate that he simply thought “now that they’re starting to enforce the EULA, when will they start to enforce the copyright for their closed source code in multiple community projects”, and then went on to force them to clarify the license situation using the only method of generating pressure he had: His LGPL code also being also infringed on by closed source code in its repo.
    It’s unfortunate that Craftbukkit basically contains the whole Minecraft server code (after a compile → decompile round trip), else the chance of Mojang caving in (hah!) would be better.

    Literally impossible, for a license change they’d need the agreement of all 181 contributors, including Wolvereeness (who made his position very clear)

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 14, 2016
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  29. Offline

    WaterBucket

    Just to screw with Mojang I would love it if ALL the developers that quit said they couldn't use there code eith

    :D
     
  30. Offline

    krisdestruction

    Plus, even if @wolverness changed his position (highly unlikely), I'm sure another contributor would want to DMCA it again with the intent of screwing Mojang :p
     
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