Bukkit: The Next Chapter

What follows is a written account of Bukkit's story. If you'd rather know what the big news is, skip to the bottom. However, we'd appreciate it if you read through our entire story as it gives us an opportunity to show appreciation and give thanks to the many people, groups and companies that helped us throughout our adventure.

When we started up Bukkit in December of 2010, we decided we wanted to do things right. Right from the beginning we wanted to be sure we were bringing about a positive change to Minecraft, one that Mojang themselves would approve of. To that end, we set up a meeting with Mojang to get a feel for their opinions on our project and make sure we weren't doing anything they didn't like. The gist of the meeting was that Mojang "liked what we were doing" but not how we had to go about doing things. Unfortunately, we both knew that we had no alternatives, so we continued along - albeit now with the reassurance that our project would most likely not be shut down any time in the future. We decided to create Bukkit to provide the Minecraft community with better tools to manage and extend their server, but our ultimate goal has always been to give the Minecraft community what it needed and wanted to make our favourite game even more enjoyable and being able to do so in an official capacity is our dream.

Shortly after the launch of Bukkit, after I had posted an innocent announcement to get developers interested in Bukkit, our project exploded with activity. While I had anticipated developer interest and had planned for such, the added interest from the community as a whole was simply overwhelming. So much so that it had begun to put a strain on my dedicated server and actually was pushing it to the point of hardware failure. Luckily, it was around this time that Curse approached us and offered to set-up a temporary Amazon EC2 instance while they purchased new servers for our use. Unfortunately, the Amazon EC2 instance also could not keep up with the demand and was proving to be too costly. So, we asked around for help and Multiplay's Steve Hartland put us on one of their boxes free of charge while we waited for new servers to be purchased and delivered.

One of the goals of the Bukkit project, or maybe just my personal goal, was to solve what I felt was a big problem within the Minecraft community: it was largely impossible for someone new to Minecraft to discover the unlimited potential of Minecraft modding. Not only would they have to deal with unwieldy and clunky forums, but there was also no central place for sharing your work. In answer to this problem, we endeavoured to create a new service dubbed Fill which we hoped would address all the needs of the community but were unable to gain any ground. We were simply not experienced enough to run something of this magnitude nor did we have the resources to pull it off. One day we were discussing the idea of Fill and our desire to provide a central download solution for the modding community and the WoW players on the team brought up Curse and the success they've had with WoWAce. At that point it all came together, not only did Curse have the resources to pull off something as large as we were envisioning in Fill, but they had the success, experience and scalable software with WoWAce to do so. With that, it was clear to everyone that Curse was the best route to take and dev.bukkit.org was born.

When news broke out about Mojang organising a Minecon, the entire community was alight with excitement and anticipation. Even today, I still find the sheer dedication from the fans unbelievable and overwhelming. Though we were also excited about Minecon, there was no way we would be able to go since Bukkit is an open source, free project. Much to our surprise, though, Curse had other plans in mind. They decided to fly us over, cover our tickets and accommodation, host us in their booth and setup a panel for us. I've never met a company that cares more about gaming than Curse: when the possibility of their supporting the Bukkit project first came up, we were all blown away. Curse wanted to throw themselves behind our project. They wanted to provide us with the support and resources we needed to continue functioning, no questions asked and their desire to send us to Minecon further reinforced this opinion we had of them. Thanks to their support, we were able to go to Minecon, have a great time and put together a panel filled with our fans, as well as sneak off to a secret meeting with Mojang.

Back in December of last year, my team and I were invited to Stockholm, Sweden by Mojang to discuss the future of Minecraft - and most importantly the future of Minecraft modding and the official Minecraft modding API. Having just recently met in Minecon, we mostly knew what to expect but were blown away by Mojang's hospitality and the surreality of actually being in Stockholm with them. Not only were we able to visit the Mojang HQ but we were also given the opportunity to be part of the launch of Cobalt (which was simply fantastic) and got to meet the entire team of talented individuals at Mojang. We spent the majority of our time with Mojang shooting ideas back and forth and getting a taste of what was to come and how we might be able to become involved.

Which leads me to today. Our meeting at Minecon was just the beginning and after having flown us out to Stockholm to get to know each other, it was clear that the potential to do truly great things together was there and we were eager to explore it. After all, we had already been given a direct line to the Minecraft team, the source code and were actively providing Mojang with (exploit) patches and improvements. The next logical step was to figure out the best way to continue working together, perhaps in a more official and intimate capacity. After careful and lengthy consideration, the best course of action became clear. My team and I had already achieved what we wanted to when we started the Bukkit project: provide server admins with the means to easily customise and run their server and provide developers with an easy to use, properly designed API to bring their insane and cool ideas to life. The next obvious step was to make it more official and with news breaking out that Mojang was interested in developing an official Minecraft API, we knew just how to do that.

I am extremely pleased and proud to announce that, as of today, the Bukkit team has joined Mojang. When discussing the possibility of a modding API publicly, Mojang was concerned that they would be unable to provide the community with a suitable and powerful enough solution and we honestly feel that our experience building Bukkit will help them do so. Thanks to our work with Bukkit, we have a years worth of experience, failures and lessons to help us develop a proper modding API and intend to do whatever it takes to produce one that satisfies the needs of the community. Now that we have an opportunity to design the official Minecraft API, we intend to make it a suitable replacement for Bukkit, if not a significantly better one, while bukkit.org will remain a community for modders for the foreseeable future.

Official announcement from Mojang with more information: http://mojang.com



A big "thank you!" is due for the many sponsors we've had over the life of the project:

Curse
eXophase.com - for hosting the project at the beginning and helping us get off our feet
Unimatrix
Arcdigital
Multiplay - especially Steve Hartland

AllGamer - especially Clinton and Scott
Our Staff who work tirelessly and thanklessly to keep everything in order
and, of course, Mojang for giving us a chance, taking us seriously and supporting what we’re doing.

And to you, our community and our family: thanks for sticking by us through thick and thin, we really would not be where we are today without you.

 

Amazing news. Totally unexpected, congratulations!

 

About the closed source concern:

Have you ever heared of foobar2000? If not, it is a music-player, and only that, which has a closed core but a open API. It is one of the best i have seen up to now, due to its very comprehensivea and well documented API. It has many fans around the world while beeing closed!
Another exmaple would be java! I bet that most here do not know much about how Java works internally, yet we all use it to code plugins for Bukkit. Why does this work? Because it is well documented and we as users/developers do not have to care about its internals for the most of the time!

The same thing goes for the now announced MC API. If they really do a good job, it's core must not be open, the API should be enough! For that it must offer a lot more than the current Bukkit does and a lot more hooks into the server core, but it must not be open source!

Notch coded MC with a SinglePlayer in mind, not Multiplayer. That is why we have such problemswith its current state. Inefficient code, bugs, etc. ...

Spout might compete as a Server software, but their problem is, that they still need to wrap around the client to make it work like they want.
If the now former Bukkit Team really gets to rewrite the whole Server/Client system and they do a at least halfway decent job it can only be better as they could change the internal working of BOTH not only one side!

For the moment, Spout might be the way to go. But tbh i think if the Mod API gets done how Dinnerbone for example posted it will supersede Spout(because it might have a better internal working and it is OFFICIAL!), as it was written for Multiplayer and has not a crippled client to work with.

In the end we will have to WAIT and see what Mojang comes up with before we even can START to say what is wrong and what not. Discussing about things we can only speculate about is never a good thing. As most times at least one person will always come with the worst case cenario and many will stand up and reference it further. It will lead to a biased discussion against the Object which was originally discussed and will never lead to anything but flame-wars/trolling.

And please stop trolling and throwing hate at each others. This Spout vs Bukkit/MC API is a unneeded and for the most of us UNWANTED discussion. I have to agree with Don here that it is hard to find the good posts in here with all the garbage wrapped around them!

 

Lathanael java is open-source, you can look at the source code of pretty much all classes (including HashMap logic). Or is that all deobfuscated? I don't see obfuscation in Java...

I want you (the CB and API dev team) to answer my DEEPEST concerns.

In plugin development, you state the following:

Why does this concern me? "don't use CraftBukkit it is bad mkay!"

1.) Notch does NOT like if you alter the gameplay of Minecraft too much. Custom entity support, client mod support and even custom Blocks will probably go down the drain. Goodbye TrainCarts, it requires CraftBukkit.

2.) You don't seem to have performance in mind at ALL. The fact alone that I had to write NoLagg to 'fix' some things...

3.) No matter how powerful your API is, you NEED TO SUPPORT EVERYTHING. previously, when something was not supported, you simply add some CraftBukkit calls to complement. This down the drain, I see no future in Bukkit or the API.

4.) All plugins will die. You stated that the event system will be refreshed, so any old plugins will die and be left in code grave.

5.) Will the API and server even take care of performance? I see no use of trove, improved mathematics. I only see wasteful variables (Location class) which are now even more embedded in the system.

6.) No ability for plugin developers to 'ask' for improvements, or reduced. 'I want the block class to return the item type it would drop upon breaking'. Bad luck, we don't add it. Haha! Have fun using reflection and poor compatibility to achieve it!

7.) CraftBukkit and Bukkit will be gone. It will be 'a place for developers to talk about development'. That is one section of the forums. Plugin developers will abandon Bukkit but still need a place to talk about stuff. Spout will gain interest at some point (holy cow we can have custom entities and blocks?! And it can host 200 players! Infinite height worlds?! Screw you API, Im going Spout!)

8.) I fear that the API will become a placeholder, and Spout will end up implementing it to add support. This can lead to all core files of the API to be never used at all. Lots of hours of work down the drain. You REALLY need to discuss this with the Spout team, or at least talk about it to Mojang staff.

The only positive side of things is that it will take less long for a server to be present after an update. But Spout has everything custom implemented (nothing to deobfuscate), so this will no longer apply then. the 'long update times' for Spout are gone, because it no longer has to rely on poorly deobfuscated native mess and reflection, like the Spout plugin. Please enlighten me with your own counter-arguments, opinions or even promises.

 

For the record I have not been talking garbage, just in case you are talking about me. I try to put valid reasons and points across and I my walls of text are only to try and inspire.

bergerkiller
Well said. You express most of my fears but in a way developers understand. Your arguments completely explains my previous arguments about spout.

I'm actually not really that worried anymore as this will either end up really good or really bad and then in that case I will just join you in spout as then using the custom client would be come the normal thing for playing on servers then and I would have no worry's at all about enforcing the client. I have said in the past and I will mention it again I think we need to split SP from the client and have two separate jars/start up modes one for MP and one for SP this way we get a PURE environment for each.

Also I thought Notch handed development to Jeb? no doupt if the big man don't like something he will simply just not allow Jeb to let it pass.

 

notch isn't lead on Minecraft, and already in v1.1 the official Minecraft client/server got functionality that is intended for client mod support.

Your point 1 is complete FUD.

Performance has steadily been improved in Minecraft, and according to what I've seen about v1.2 it's improved in this version as well.

FUD, there's no NEED to do anything of the sort. A lot of plugins use only the official Bukkit API, maybe because the developers know better than to use unsupported APIs and then whine when they change.

How weird. My plugin is updated and thus singlehandedly disproves your statement that all plugins will die. More FUD.

See 2.

I've made suggested improvements on Leaky and seen them developed and included, without even having to do a pull request myself. FUD.

If there's was a point to be made here besides Spout-trolling I fail to see it. Official mod support being a bad thing because the name changes?

If there was a point to be made above, besides your unfounded fears, I fail to see it. Also, Bukkit developers are know Mojang staff and will most likely talk to themselves. FUD.

There's no working Spout today. There might be tomorrow, and your argument would also be stronger then.

disclaimer: I'm not part of Bukkit, nor Mojang. I just find the amount of FUD spreading and trolling in this thread laughable. However, fear of change in general is a very real concept in human psychology and is the most likely explanation.

 

Wouldn't spout still take time to update since they need to figure out how to implement the new features? They can either make a guess at how to implement it themselves, or spend time deobfuscating the minecraft server code to analyse it, both of which would take time.

 

troed The spout server is already working, though of course still very simplified. (it's like creative mode without entities other than sheep)

You don't really answer my question about performance here. I am not talking of 'mmh let's add a list so we can loop through chunks faster', I am talking of replacing EVERY call to Math.sqrt with a faster equivalent. Compressing chunk data in memory, as is done in Spout right now. Improving every possible function that can be improved. Having multi-threading.

Don't forget that the team that is working on the API is significantly small compared to that of Spout. Spout had time to completely rewrite the server. Don't bet on it they will do the same for the API! It could even become a rework of CraftBukkit, which is by itself very buggy.

The point is. You can't keep on adding small fixes to one huge broken project. You need to rewrite it. It is something I have done very often, especially when I developed visual basic .net applications. I found that my current system was not fast enough, and decided to rewrite it. For CraftBukkit, this is REALLY needed. And I am not trolling whatsoever, I am just starting to feel that a segregation will start to exist. One side allowing everything the other side allows, but more. It is only a matter of time before everyone uses Spout at some point.

Also, I am not talking of 'regular' plugins here. I am talking of gameplay altering plugins. Talking of plugins that basically inject into the system to do their feature. For example, altering the way chunks load in NoLagg. These optimizations can not exist if everything is shielded from the outside. And making a class protected is only one word at a time.

<add>

The forum thing is unrelated to mods or to plugins. We have a huge codebase of developer resources, tutorials, examples, functions, help, event explanations, whatnot. I would find it kind of sad if this place dies off just like that. Just like Battlefield 2 modding (BFEditor.org) died 3 years ago, of which I was a great part.

unrelated: Are you a plugin developer or a server admin? Did you ever make something so revolutionary that the API couldn't provide it? Because this is my main issue with the API. Sure it allows you to do what Bukkit does. It allows you to change blocks, move and teleport entities, make portals and world managers. But it won't allow the truly unique things, like riding a dragon, flying minecarts, minecart racekarts, flying hippo with dragon eyes.

samp20 this is a one-time thing. Of course, it takes some time to invest in building up the server, but once this is finished they are pretty much free of doing anything else. They could even be faster at updating, since the packet protocol will hardly change. Unless they start delaying Minecrat updates to update the API, which I actually expect to happen.

 

Full time paid jobs vs spare time unpaid.

As far as I can understand the comments made by Dinnerbone, that's exactly what's going to happen, while still as far as possible not making unnecessary changes to the API.

That's both trolling and FUD all merged into one sentence. Just to be blatantly clear - all the Spout trolling in this thread has made me personally 100% convinced I don't want to touch it with a 10' pole.

(And that reminds me to go close the "please support Spout" tickets I still have open)

 

troed let's compare the two then. For the API to overrule or at LEAST be a competitor, it needs the following:

And it will become more. Now I wonder if the current staff assigned for the API can accomplish all of this in less time the Spout server had to develop. You may not want to face it, but this is the perfect change for Spout to gain interest. You can hate them, you can ignore them, you can even attack them, but these are the facts.

As usual everyone thinks I am a troll because of my knowledge of the inner workings of these servers. I know things are hard to explain sometimes, but you should at least try to think for yourself: these are the facts. This is the situation. What will happen?

 

No. The only thing it needs is to be the officially supported API that can be relied upon. Also, you're trying to pass of how Bukkit worked _before_ becoming Mojang as the way it _will_ work - even though that has already been communicated that it will not.

Oh, and btw. There's still no working Spout. The only truly real fact is that THAT is required to be a "competitor". I suggest answering the "What will happen?" question then.

 

@bergerkiller, @ledhead900

I have the feeling that we are talking past each other.

Though Java is open source MOST do not take a look how it is written. They just use it and get along very well. Why is that? Because it is well documented and for the most part, you do not have to look into the code. This point is also valid for a closed core. I want the API to be open too, but the server itself must not be open to be successful. Being open ofc would help achieve that goal faster but is not a necessary part of the progress. I wish it will be open, but i also understand why Mojang would want to protect their property.

Yes the current system has bugs, inefficencies and a lot more! Yet it offers much, some things through reflection. This is something we need and the new API should have by default. I agree that if it is all protected we will end up with Spout wrapping around it (well not really but it emphasizes what i mean) and providing the features we as developers want to have. And i also do share most of your concerns! That's why i've said it has to at least offer what we can do now with the wrapper(Bukkit).

But what makes me feel bad is the hate which is all present here, even to some amount by you.
Saying "Spout has this...this and that. What do you have/plan/promise?" is not, while understandable, a good way of communicating. Exspecially considering that atm not much is already being worked on.
I just hope that Dinnerbone can bring his ideas of a seperated SP/MP to the new System as they are essantially what would be needed. Even Spout with it's current system depends the client doing some of its math which for a MP game is BAD. The client should just do visual things(always in any well written MP game).

I'll happily join Spout for the time it fills the gap, but if the API is released i will have a look at it and THEN judge, not now, what system benefits most.
There is absoluty no point in saying that Spout will be better or the API while we do not know WHAT we get.

 

troed Download Spout latest dev build. Download the 'Vanilla' plugin. Run your server.
Spout is a voxel server engine, Spout is NOT a minecraft server. Vanilla is a plugin that adds the Minecraft server to the Spout engine. Vanilla is still under development to add the required entities.

Lathanael I agree, but I have developed TrainCarts unfortunately. You can't compare Java to the API.

Example:
The minecart. It contains ONE 600 lines long physics routine. Now I want to make it change the physics a tiny bit to make it follow another minecart.

Before:
I can look at the source code on GitHub, copy-paste it into a minecart extending class, add my changes, deobfuscate some things and publish it. I need to spawn my custom minecart. Use the native world.addEntity and add a custom tracker. TrainCarts is born.

After: API
I can't find the Minecart source code. I end up hacking into the server to find the class I need and deobfuscate everything. I managed to build an unstable extending Minecart, which will change every new release of the API. Ow well, what do ya do. Now I need to spawn it...the API doesn't provide it, so I look for the world class. This is obfuscated as well. world.vc(entity). TrainCarts is born, but will require a rewrite every new API release. I abandon the project and go to Spout, because it is stable for my needs.

Java doesn't obfuscate things. I fear that the API 'core' (which the API covers) will be obfuscated as well. Unless I see a written report that this will NOT happen I expect a failure.

And it is very easy to stop people from doing what I tried to do:

Code:

public final class EntityMinecart extends Entity implements IInventory {
 
}

Try to extend that!

Also, I am now no longer discussing Spout. 'Spout' will no longer be used in my further replies. This will only cover the CraftBukkit -> API transition, because they left us pretty much in the dark.

 

forget it... whatever your points were... valid or not... you said spout... and that's it.. nobody will answer you who have any insight either...

this is a lost cause.... like I stated before.... the only people who can add something with a real value to this conversation will not answer your questions or talk with you or the others about your fears...

that is a fact... EvilSeph said it himself... all others posting here have no insight information or don't have the authority to decide anything..

so that is the way to handle a community... oh and btw... because I posted this this will also go down in flames and be ignored..

 

That is exactly why i said we would need access to the same functions we already have and more! (Essentially to nearly everything not security related and even some security parts)

It is just, that i do not think that a "closed" core by default means we are screwed. And that is what i want to express here. Saying just because something is "closed" it MUST fail is stupid imho.(Best example i can come up with: Windows, while it is by far not perfect it still has a HUGE market share)

 

Don Redhorse you are right, it was a bad idea bringing <I WONT SAY IT> into the picture. Let's just completely ignore <I WONT SAY IT> and talk about the API.

Lathanael yes, it won't necessarily have to fail. But I feel that, when all community support from a project is disbanded, the strength of the project will become less.

Consider the following:
The API is released. Everyone excited. 'LETS MOVE OUR STUFF!'. Now all of a sudden people notice bugs...bugs because they had not enough community support to fully test their beta versions. (though, maybe they will allow beta builds? I don't know...)

What now? No one has to source code. Who will fix this? Who will come up with pull requests that address issues? Requests? Anything?

 

well I think I posted a very well post further up... and some other too... without anything about spout and that the team leaves us behind which still voice some concerns like:

• documentation of bukkit is poor, this needs to improve a lot, which will be a change to the bukkit team
• what about interaction with the community? how will this work? Issue reporting? etc.
• what about an ecosystem for developers? Forums, wiki etc?

these are three very valid concerns... which nobody has an answer too yet...
tell me... oh not you who THINK that it will be that way or the other... no THOSE who know...

oh... btw. 1.2.2 is out...

EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.

 

I'm not entirely in the same boat here, well I don't think I am. I am arguing that the two teams that currently refuse to talk should man up and do so and try and encourage Mojang to accept what us the players/developers, the ones who actually play the game and know what we want have a decent say in what goes into the modding API.

I'm certainly not picking sides and saying I'm going this or that way, I have no idea what I will do yet I will wait and see how it all pans out and what becomes of both. I'm mainly trying to a point across to the teams involved that now is not the time to argue we have a opportunity like no other to be 1 on 1 with the developers of the game and add this modding ability I think we should milk it and do it right that's all.

I defend those worth defending and Bergerkiller has some very real concerns worth defending I also host my own server I built the rig I learned from scratch I needed to research into how Bukkit the wrapper and Mincraft talk this was the only way to get a basic understanding on what was good for my server vs a competing modding solution. I use his plugins they allow my home based server to which has like 4gig of ram to run 30 plugins and host 25 players and have little to no lag for players connecting within Australia (same country) did I mention I can convert a whole chunk to tnt and detonate it with out server dropping below 19ticks/per sec these all the "fixes" some people think are not important.

His Nolagg esp runs on completely rewritten code that needs to talk with the native functions and code in Craftbukkit.

Naturally I will be keeping this installed tho not required it is a hell of a lot better than letting tnt clock the tick rate and items to lag up the server. Anyway I am getting of topic here.

Just please acknowledge the fact that I am not skipping you over I share a lot of of concerns I just know that now is the time to talk about it I have no reason to troll or boycott either side I have both running side by side right now Spout and Bukkit are run on my server, I'm simply not arguing about who is better in anyway shape or form I am just discussing the future and general thoughts and concerns.

What ever the future holds it for either side it can't really get worse, I mean Bukkit now have a full time job working for Mojang out of it and Spout will probably work harder and faster.

Time will tell how things pan out.

 

Don Redhorse yes those are very valid concerns. Of course, as a developer, I have more difficult concerns. For example:

• How will I be able to spawn my custom entities in the future?
• Will the new API have source code similar to CraftBukkit?
• Will the core files be completely hidden?
• Will the source code, or certain code, be obfuscated?
• Will all of the requirements be met?
• Will it be bug-free?
• Will it require slow reflection calls to do the simplest of things?
• Will parts of the server be extendable?
• Will plugins have to focus on managing a minecraft server, or can they actually alter it?

Lots of things I really need answers for.

 

ledhead900

I am not saying that that his concerns are garbish, i agree with him mostly

And thanks for explaining a little further what your motives are, i now think i've understood it.

I'd hope they talk to each other. But to be honest, i do not think this will happen. There is to much bad blood between the two teams and the thread on the Spout forums proofs it if you ask me. Both sides have made mistakes and are now jumping up each others throat on anytinhg they say. And i have the feeling that both sides feel superior and better than the other one which is also a bad sign and indicates that working together for them is nearly impossible!
Last but not least now also Mojang has a say what happens. And if they feel what Spout/Forge/ModloaderMP does is not what they want to do hen i fear that making them talk to each other wont bring any good.

 

I'm seeing a lot of assumptions that the new API will be closed source.

I for one haven't seen any official word one way or the other, which is to say that we have no idea what it will be in the end just yet.

 

Omg yes i had a feeling this might happen!!! please fix the multiplayer you guys and DEV's always make such good mods and I bet mojang couldn't even come close if it wasn't for bukkit!

 

NuclearW Open source would be a very good decision, I do hope they will do that...

 

And exactly this fact causes the people to develop their own ideas.

 

I know, just it seems to me that a lot of the speculation has been taken as more than it is.

 

This is not true. The API does not need to reveal any of the code; it could merely be interfaces which the actual code implements. In fact, that's the model that Bukkit already follows. None of the Minecraft code is actually in Bukkit.

This category sounds like it includes me, since I wrote the inventory events almost all by myself, and I think I have written a few other events as well. However I have no plans to move to Spout. I was not impressed with the API of the Spout plugin when I tried it. Maybe the Spout server API will be better, but at the moment I'm going to stick to Bukkit.

Ah, but now they have new employees experienced in the area of creating API, so it's certain that the API really will come now.

He never promised to release it as open source when it was released as a finished product. Maybe when it was old and no longer selling, but not when it was fresh out of beta.

It amazes me that some people see facts and say "I respect your opinion".

Technically, you still can.

Oh, I dunno, maybe about as long as you need to wait to get things added to Bukkit? Except... less time than that, because now they're being paid for it.

I don't see how this analogy applies. Apple's SDK is just as easy to obtain as Android's, more or less. I don't really know anything about Android development, so there could be a difference, but I know it's not hard to obtain Apple's SDK. Plus, an SDK is typically just an API anyway, so that's another point where your analogy fails.

 

Your probably right. But I look at it like this, what would have happened if we just said nothing and took SOPA as it was?.

Yes SOPA has nothing to do with this thread it just an example so I don't wish to see anyone complain about that reference ok .

 

Oh, we're discussing the interfaces and whatnot being closed-source? Sorry, I thought he was talking about the actual source. My mistake.

 

I'm pretty sure that was already added to Bukkit.

Riding a dragon is currently possible, I believe. The minecart ones might be possible but wouldn't be easy.

Number 4 is already happening, and I'm sure Jeb and the Bukkit team will work on number 5. Number 6 is sort of available already in the form of the channel system; doesn't allow interaction with existing packets, but does allow you to make your own custom ones. That also covers numbers 1, 2, 7, 8, and possibly 3 and 9, to some extent at least. I think number 11 is rather unlikely, sadly, and number 12 as well. As for 10... that's kinda too broad to make a real prediction.

 

1.That was speculation on word from developers I know who are pretty set on the move if this does not work out too well.

2.Its long overdue and Notch is not giving it to us Bukkit team are. So it its tech a promise not kept by Notch It was meant to be first priority after game was finished 1.2 is here and no API. For the record there a plenty of experienced developers in the SP community that could have done just as a good a job as Bukkit have.

3.He sure did, On twitter he said it would be released after the game was finished along with the modding API, He went on to say that developers would need to agree some sort of new TOS stating that he would basically hold the rights to use any content created and add it to the game how ever he saw fit, also it would only be available to paid users. This was said around the time 1.9 was in snapshots.

4.This was a general statement to cover any opinions you may have had mixed into the factual parts, and not directed at the facts. My of way of saying I'm not trolling I have no reason to mock you.

5.Well yes, but it would most likely be copyrighted and obfuscated which kinda defeats the purpose of modding API imo , and may still be illegal to distribute works, actually this was another thing covered when he said open source would come, he also said that client would could be distributed.

6.Please don't cut my sentences off to make things sound the way you want them too, I said how long would it took if Mojang had it in their hands due to the fact that its now a product of Mojang and we may not be able to suggest fixes and have quick RB's pushed in 24 hours instead we may need to wait for until the NEXT Minecraft Build, that is what I was getting at, I thought that came across obvious.

7. That analogy makes perfect sense, Apple like Mojang like to keep control over the interface where with APPLE if I wanted to add a custom app not from the app store say a home made application I need to perform a jailbreak firmware hack otherwise the device will not let it install and the SDK is not Free, where as with ANDROID I would simply grab the SDK for FREE and code it and install it, No large developer fees/Royalty's.

This can be associated with Closed and Open source in a relatively simple way that is that closed source generally is locked under copyright and has its content and use controlled, Open source is free to distribute and if you can modify it you can share it no fear of a law suit.

It kind of is but that is where Afforess gave up and burgerkiller took over creating a custom API to make things easier and add functionality.

Also #4 I believe it requires a client mod I did see some of these in the Minecraft discussion threads but they required a client mod, you show me one that works purely with a plugin and no custom API and no will work if a un modified client joins and I will rest my case about this one.

 

Celtic Minstrel It was me requesting it and was me making an initial pull for it, but no idea if it ever got added. (never got to see a response from them...)

Then that covers quite a lot, less 'hidden' for me then. 10 is a bit too broad, I agree, but for example, change the 'Entity Tracking' for custom spawn packets and 'Mob spawner' for custom world entity spawning. It is lacking right now and requires a lot of reflection to hack your way into there, possibly breaking a lot of things.