Mojang and the Bukkit Project

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

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  1. Offline

    Sleaker

    Except that Mojang claims they own Bukkit, so by proxy Mojang includes their own server in CraftBukkit. They can't do this 'we didn't include the stuff' but 'we own everything bukkit' Either they have to be responsible for ALL of the actions of the Bukkit project/team regardless of if they were 'hands off' and let them do whatever, or they don't have any claim here and their 'purchase' of Bukkit was squandering of money and didn't actually give them anything.
     
  2. Offline

    olloth


    1. It doesn't matter what CraftBukkit is, Bukkit is GPL and linking a GPL library means you must distribute under GPL.
    2. Yes it is. I was there for that too. This could have happened at any time, to either the CB distributable or any plugin that wasn't GPL, it only takes a single contributor to Bukkit of which there are many.
     
    ams2990 likes this.
  3. Offline

    Syd

    Necrodoom
    I believe Mojang is using this to negate the copyright claim.
    I'd think there were lawyers involved, and they bend the laws to their needs.
    (Like Mojang still has copyright on the Modified partly-deobfuscated subset of decompiled compiled obfuscated Mojang code but it is NOT the code of the vanilla servers, so they are not required to licence this code under anything als as it is now.)
     
    StarScore likes this.
  4. Offline

    Alshain01

    Since apparently everything below that post is invisible, I will edit the original post.
     
  5. Offline

    ams2990

    Given Bukkit is GPL and CraftBukkit binaries include Bukkit, the requirements imposed on CraftBukkit are those of the GPL. The CraftBukkit source code itself is LGPL, however.
     
    1mpre55, Black Hole and hintss like this.
  6. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Syd it is still essentially trying to claim that the decompiled code is not mojang code.
     
    hintss likes this.
  7. Offline

    noidexe

    AFAIK the server code in CraftBukkit is not the sourcecode of Mojangs minecraft_server.jar and is not provided by Mojang. The Bukkit team deobfuscates and uploads their own version of the server code. The copyright belongs to whoever uploads the code, so unless Mojang says "hey, that's just my code deobfuscated, take it down!" the license is still valid. Wolfe can't ask for his code to be removed because CraftBukkit is not breaking the GPL and Mojang has no obligation to distribute the oficial server code because they're not using any of Wolfe's contributions in minecraft_server.jar so they are not bound by the terms of the GPL.

    This is what I understand, but I may be wrong. I would still like to hear vubui 's explanation.
     
    StarScore likes this.
  8. Offline

    Tako

    Lets put it this way... the future of Minecraft is hanging on a very thin thread... You can add bunnies, and floating beholders, but if... and I stress on this IF.... bukkit is killed off and no form of replacement ModAPI is available to at least 80% of the big servers out there that make use of this, then they just killed off the game.

    Minecraft without mods is a dead Minecraft.
     
    1mpre55, caelum19, kshade and 9 others like this.
  9. Offline

    keenerb

    This has no real bearing on the DMCA.

    "Wesley’s allegations are therefore wholly unfounded."

    applies to

    "Wesley Wolfe has mischaracterized and misrepresented the position with regard to the Bukkit Project & Mojang. It has been unfairly suggested that Mojang is in some way behind his request that CraftBukkit is taken down"

    This entire message from Mojang COO is essentially summed up as:

    "We didn't give source code to be included in the project, so we can't be forced to open-source MInecraft. Also, don't blame us for the DMCA takedown even though Wesley included a quote from us saying that we didn't give Bukkit permission for the source code."
     
    hintss likes this.
  10. Offline

    ams2990

    Plus Mojang claiming they somehow own Bukkit. Control the infrastructure surrounding the project, yes. Own the code? I don't think so.
     
  11. Offline

    EmpowerGaming

    Well that wasn't all that bad, but what we want is for Bukkit to keep updating like it usually did and when the MOD Api comes out I want it to support Bukkit plugins and Bukkit too.
     
  12. Offline

    bluebird337

    I think rumors will happen regardless of any announcements. Realms gets released and then servers receive EULA clarifications, Bukkit and Spigot get caught up in intellectual property battles, "temporarily" shut down, etc.
     
  13. Offline

    freefish

    Regardless of anything else said here, this is just plain incorrect. A quick glance inside any existing CraftBukkit .jar file will clearly show the presence of net.minecraft.server packages straight from the official server code. It also shows the presence of Bukkit code (which is distinct from CraftBukkit).

    CraftBukkit code being included with Minecraft server code is fine - the LGPL license CraftBukkit is under allows this. But Bukkit is under the plain GPL, and that code may not be included in a distribution with closed-source code without the closed-source code being made available upon request under the terms of the GPL.

    IANAL, but as I understand it: Whether or not Mojang owns the project and sanctioned the release of these CraftBukkit versions that include Mojang server code, it is still a violation of the GPL, and Wolvereness is absolutely legally justified in what he is doing.
     
    caelum19, Bone008, CubieX and 5 others like this.
  14. Offline

    ColonelHedgehog

    Thanks for explaining.

    Ugh... all these problems do nothing but delay releases. ;-;
     
  15. It's such a shame an indie game developer like Mojang that's only sold over 16.5 million copies of its flagship title can't afford more staff.

    Sad and disappointing that he's protecting copyright he believes is his? The only people that would be sad for would be your PR team, if you had one.

    He quoted your email as evidence, not an endorsement. Also, what do you mean “has no liability whatsoever?” You don't get to decide what you are or aren't liable for. How can anyone be liable in a DMCA takedown notice anyway? You're really not making any sense here.

    A complete (partially deobfuscated) copy of the Minecraft server is included in binary distributions of CraftBukkit and is absolutely necessary for it to function, not to mention the modified server files which reside in CraftBukkit's codebase itself.

    You're a liar.

    Wolfe's code is irrevocably licensed under the GPL as long as a so-licensed copy of it continues to exist somewhere, but under the GPL only. No other license is applicable to it (because he didn't license it under any other licenses), so you have the right to distribute it under the terms of the GPL only.

    If not, it's not legal to distribute Bukkit under the terms of the GPL (and by extension it's not legal to distribute CraftBukkit, which depends on and includes Bukkit in any form).

    The community wasn't threatened. The future of the project was, not least because you declined to contribute any fraction of your significant resources to its continued development. I can see why you waited. Maximizing profit at the expense of the needs of the individuals who do your work for you is a vital part of any business.


    Do you understand anythinghow open source works? You don't have to give up your ownership of Minecraft in order to fix this, you just have to publish the source code under a GPL-compatible license. Unless you accept copylefted downstream patches (since you probably don't know what those are, I assure you it doesn't happen by accident), you'll retain the ability to also publish Minecraft under any other license as well (so you could stop open-sourcing releases if you wanted to later).

    You had the choice to support the project before any of the ownership thing happened. That's like, the entire damned point of open source. I know you're basically paid to be sociopathic in the interests of the company you work for, but it's actually in your interest to learn some basic facts about the mechanics of free and open source software.

    Do you think the result would benefit the (now ex-) Bukkit team if you compensated them for the ~two years of free work you conned them into doing for you? Or do you really mean benefit you and your company's accounts?

    Like the right to distribute software under the GPL to which the GPL cannot apply? I agree, it's completely unreasonable to do that.
     
    Hoot215, Europia79, Totom3 and 12 others like this.
  16. Offline

    keenerb


    Actually, it IS correct, because the decompiled server code is NOT the official server code as Mojang would have provided.

    This post is nothing more than Mojang covering their a***s and trying to establish a legal reason for why they don't have to open-source Minecraft. Basically, someone else "unofficially" included decompiled source, thus it's not Mojang that's responsible.
     
  17. Offline

    PandazNWafflez

    Doesn't matter whether it is the original source or decompiled - in fact including decompiled source in CraftBukkit makes it MORE in violation of the GPL license.
     
  18. Offline

    DaddyEric

    Ok, what we honestly need here is this.

    Since it is Clear that Mojang Owns Bukkit and CraftBukkit and that it is one of their child projects the following needs to happen.

    1. Mojang needs to own up to owning Bukkit and have a representative on the bukkit staff that is a Liason bewtween the community and Mojang.

    2. If the Bukkit Project is going to continue then it needs to have its own policies and guidelines about the software including a EULA and Developers Code Agreement between the tho. Kind of like a Terms of Service agreement.

    3. Mojang needs to make more transparent its Licensing and Use Policies of CraftBukkit, this can be easily done with the API EULA and CraftBukkit EULA.

    4. Bukkit needs to have its EULA and TOS and API EULA as a clear understanding of what developers may do and what developers may not do.

    5. All Bukkit Plugins that are released onto the Bukkit website need to be LGPL as well, since this is an API then noone can really Copyright and lay claim to their code that they have written to interface with an API that is free.
    if you have propriety plugins and wish to claim all rights reserved then you should not release them for public distribution and use.

    The Bottom Line is this,

    Without Mojang, Bukkit, CraftBukkit, Spigot *dont ban me please, and all other Server Technologies and plugins and the servers that we all love and play on would not be possible.
    An API is an API, however when all of the code that is provided is solely because Mojang and Notch (whoever) started it and another child project of Mojang Called bukkit wrote the API for it then the Plugins and such cannot, and should not be commercially sold and distributed for profit.

    As for the All Rights Reserved Licensing, we need to get rid of that totally and make all plugins either completely open source, or we must find a way to cater to those who wish to not share their code.

    The community of Minecraft is supposed to promote education, higher learning, and learning from others is part of that. If you want to have a plugin that is propriety and "All Rights Reserved" then it should not be in an Open Source community.
     
  19. Offline

    sablednah

    I'm just glad to see some communication - and a statement of intent to find the best way forward for Bukkit.

    Conspiracy nuts and haterz will pick every word of that post apart looking for flaws and hidden evil. I'm happy to read the spirit of it - "we're working on it, please bear with us and if you can help us find the best way forward".

    I don't envy Mojang's position here. If they take over Bukkit and move it in house and hire more staff - they get told off for "taking over Bukkit" and "claiming the communities work" - if they leave it alone they are evil for "not supporting Bukkit", "not recognising what bukkit has contributed to multiplayer"* and "letting Bukkit die so realms can rule the world"

    *Despite recognising it by hiring 4 of the main staff!
     
  20. People should not confuse "some Mojang code" with the Minecraft server source code... decompiled binaries or decompiled byte code is something else, also it might not count as "provided by Mojang".

    Edit: So let lawyers rule, i'll go fishing on 1.7.10 :(. No i'll get beer and chips, something...
     
  21. Offline

    smbarbour

    The CraftBukkit distribution is composed of three parts: Bukkit (the API), which is GPL; the part that was once called mc-dev (the decompiled server), which is closed source; and CraftBukkit, which is LGPL, that ties the closed-source and open-source parts together. Use of a GPL component does not mean that everything that is packaged with it automatically becomes relicensed as GPL. The GPL requires that any changes made must be made publicly available as well, and does NOT preclude its use with closed source.
     
    MeanMaggie likes this.
  22. Offline

    libraryaddict

  23. Offline

    ColonelHedgehog

    We should make a hashtag for all of this. Because as we all know, hashtags fix everything.

    #RefillBukkit looks good.

    #RefillBukkit!
     
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  24. Offline

    Relicum

    Total lies, you have been saving one thing in private and another in public. I'll email you all the proof of your staff BSing. Also you had 2 years to sort this out but it never suited you. You even excepted donations from a free open source project on bukkit which you only removed last week. That is illegal get your own house in order before playing the big I AM. The GPL's have been there for 4 years you choose not to remove them, you milked open source developers for years while all the time knowing the entire project wasn't legal. shame on you.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  25. Offline

    olloth

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL

    I can't edit my previous post for some reason but,

    LGPL does not allow you to 'leak' GPL in the fashion you describe.

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility
    Notice the chart says its OK but the combination of the two must be released under GPL

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

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

    Favorlock


    I don't think people realize that Bukkit is not the only thing out there that plugin developers can use as a way to modify servers. Although Forge is recognized as a mod framework, that does not prevent developers from writing server side mods. If Bukkit were to kick the bucket then developers would move on to Forge.
     
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  27. Offline

    Weirdaholic

    Yes, but the Situation is the opposite:
    Mojang didn't use GPL-Licensed Software for his Program
    The Devs of Bukkit used Closed-Code to edit their GLP-Licensed program.
    It's not the same!
     
  28. Offline

    |Anthony|

    So how does this stance effect dinnerbones statement?
    Is he going to follow through with that, or will he be restricted due to his position at mojang?
     
  29. Offline

    freefish


    The takedown and whether or not Wolvereness's actions are legally sound have nothing to do with whether or not Mojang provided the code, really. As I said, whether or not they did, CraftBukkit still contains GPL code (the Bukkit API) that can likely be construed as "linking" (per the GPL definition) with closed-source code (Minecraft server). If that is the case, it seems like there's a GPL violation there, and therefore there's a valid reason for one of the contributors to claim a copyright violation on it.
     
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  30. Offline

    ColonelHedgehog

    Eh, not sure about everyone. I for one found Forge quite a bit more difficult than Bukkit. Bukkit is so clean and tidy...
     
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