Bukkit: It's time to say ...

Discussion in 'Community News and Announcements' started by EvilSeph, Aug 21, 2014.

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    EvilSeph

    [​IMG]


    When we first set out to add our personal touch to what hMod offered the community 3 and a half years ago, none of us foresaw the success the Bukkit project would end up having. From a rocky start that wasn't of our own making (hMod suddenly disappeared without warning while we were just starting up the project, leaving us ill-prepared to fill the void left over), we stepped up to the challenge and managed to put together a usable, respectable alternative to other server mods. We even went so far as to improve on the Minecraft server itself. I can proudly and confidently say that Bukkit was and is a success: not only were we able to provide a platform for hundreds of thousands of Developers to build upon and make use of, we were also frequently providing our Server Admins with peace of mind knowing that the latest exploits and security holes were addressed in a timely and responsible manner.

    From the get go we were plagued with issues and obstacles we needed to overcome, one of which we were sadly unable to tackle despite our best efforts: the legal barrier of licensing and permission. When starting the Bukkit project and even getting involved with hMod before that, we all knew that our work - no matter how well-intentioned - fell into a dangerous legal grey area. As such, my first priority at the start was to do things right: contact Mojang to try and get permission to continue on with the project and discuss our licensing. Unfortunately, while we did get into contact with Mojang and managed to have a chat with Notch and Jeb themselves (who have said that they don't like our methods but understand that there isn't any alternative and are thus fine with what we were and are doing), we never did get an official meeting with their business side to get legally sound permission to continue as we were and were unable to sort out our licensing issues. To this day we find our project in limbo with a half-applied license some could argue is invalid and little power on our end to do anything about the situation.

    With that realisation came a nagging unease at the back of our minds that at any point in time Mojang could decide they didn't like what we were doing and shut us down - something we were all expecting for the first year or so of the project's life but, to our surprise, never occurred. Naturally, Mojang's conscious decision to not take action on our project gave us the confidence to continue on (something which I'm sure Server Admins out there can relate to given the recent, sudden and unexpected EULA enforcement) and we even later got further confirmation from Notch himself that we were and are allowed to keep proceeding as we always had.

    Fast forward to more recent times and Mojang have made the abrupt and sudden decision to start enforcing their EULA in an effort to quell the outlook of Minecraft being pay to win. While I can completely understand where they are coming from and support their mission to shut down pay to win servers, it's difficult to be supportive of their abrupt turn-around with enforcing rules they consciously decided not to enforce since the start of Minecraft. On top of this, there are also clauses - which it would be irresponsible of us not to be aware of - within the now suddenly enforced EULA that directly affect the Bukkit project.

    Most notably: "The one major rule is that you must not distribute anything we've made". While the EULA does go on to try and clarify what is meant by "anything we've made", I feel that it only serves to confuse the situation even more so. At the end of the day, it seems that Mojang can determine what is a "mod, plugin or hack" of their game on the fly and their recent abrupt turn-around on enforcing the EULA has us understandably worried. Couple this with the fact that it isn't legally viable or acceptable to enforce the EULA piecemeal and our future is clear.

    At this point in time, I think it's safe to say that it's no longer worth it for us to put up a fight when it comes to keeping Bukkit and modding alive. With large and significant changes coming in Minecraft 1.8 that we'll be hard pressed to provide support for and the lack of support from Mojang with updates since acquiring our original core team (Mojang used to provide us with mappings to speed up the update process), there is little motivation for us to continue limping on across various aspects of the project. From a project management standpoint, it's become increasingly difficult to find willing and able individuals to help out the project on a purely voluntary basis due to people losing interest in Minecraft or people looking for something more. Simply put, this was ultimately the final nail in the coffin.

    Nonetheless, no one can deny that we've had a fantastic run as a project. This is due in no small part to the support we received and continue to receive from both the Minecraft community and the many companies and organisations that have graciously chosen to support us with a ridiculous amount of resources, infrastructure and backing - far more than we could have ever asked for. No amount of words can adequately express the gratitude we have for all our sponsors who have supported us through our journey and ensured Bukkit had the infrastructure required to be the vast success it is today. To list all of what these sponsors have done for us would be a post equal in length to this one, so we will unfortunately need to keep it brief. We want to give huge shout-outs and thanks to: eXophase.com for getting us off our feet and hosting us at the start; Multiplay and Curse for swooping in and providing us with (emergency) hosting we continue to use to this day including dl.bukkit.org and our BukkitDev service; as well as AllGamer for providing us test servers whenever we needed a server to certify update and promoted builds or attempt to reproduce a bug report.

    Last, but definitely not least, we'd like to thank the many staff, both past and present, that have volunteered countless hours over the years. I am at a loss for words to express just how much these people have meant to the project and to myself. The core team who have constantly worked hard to update to every new Minecraft version, while adding in new API and improving the server itself. The BukkitDev staff who spend countless hours checking over the fantastic plugins our community creates. Our moderation staff keeping our forums orderly and safe for all people seeking out a great community to be a part of. Additionally, the many unsung people who have helped in various ways despite having no official title, simply because there was work to do. Finally, my administrators, who have tirelessly helped me keep the project functioning as a whole. I would especially like to thank TnT and mbaxter for sticking through it with me to the end, always ready to discuss an issue and provide me with advice.

    It's been a fantastic 3 and a half years of providing what we believe to be the absolute best modding platform for the wonderful Minecraft community to use. We really enjoyed seeing the amazing feats our many Developers and Server Admins achieved with the product we provided and continue to be amazed every day at the ingenuity our community shows. Thanks for everyone's continued support! It has and will continue to mean the world to us. Together we were able to provide a Minecraft server used by hundreds of thousands of servers out there (with our last Recommended Build having over 2.6 million downloads!), which is certainly something to be proud of and a great note to end on.

    This is the end, it's time to say goodbye. It's been an amazing run and we achieved much more than anyone thought was possible, even ultimately culminating in Mojang hiring our original core team. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and the Bukkit project has run its course, leaving me to make one final - incredibly difficult - decision to shut down the project I’ve poured 3 and a half years of my life into which means so much to me. We're no longer able to confidently distribute our modified versions of the Minecraft server and it is no longer smart for us to continue with our update process. Sadly, this means we will NOT be updating Bukkit nor CraftBukkit for Minecraft 1.8 and, since Minecraft 1.7.10 introduced the EULA enforcement, we will be placing the project under a code freeze for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, due to obvious legal reasons we will not be helping anyone else complete any updates nor sharing our methods despite any desire to the contrary. Although the project itself will essentially be no more, we'll continue to support our community, the forums, IRC and BukkitDev as long as we are able and as long as our partners support us with the resources and infrastructure to do so.

    As for us? Well, who knows? Maybe we'll find another game, program or project to be passionate about and we'll be back with a vengeance? Only time will tell, but I hope that we'll see you around the next passion-project of ours when it happens :)


    [lukegb]There's more to come on this. Please read this for more information about where we stand.[/lukegb]
     
  2. Offline

    Skyost

    TheSimpZone I give up. If you do not like Mojang and/or Minecraft, just leave the forum. I do not give a shit.
     
  3. Invisible

    DrPyroCupcake

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    Alshain01

    Goodbye Bukkit, It's been fun guys. If your looking for new project you should check out Kerbal Space Program, it's amazing.
     
    Rydian likes this.
  5. Offline

    Rydian

    What are you talking about?

    Minecraft's EULA changes have nothing to do with Bukkit. The OP was incorrect and full of FUD, which is why it's been crossed out and other Bukkit staff members are pointing out to people that the situation is NOT what the original post says it is.

    Wrong.

    http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/02/29/mojang-acquires-bukkit-minecraft-modding-team
    https://forums.bukkit.org/threads/bukkit-the-next-chapter.62489/
    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...es-minecraft-mod-developer-team-behind-bukkit
    https://mojang.com/2012/02/minecraft-team-strengthened/
    http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/7640-bukkit-officially-joins-mojang

    Just because something happened when you weren't around to see it live doesn't mean it wasn't publicly announced.

    Wrong.

    There has been no mention of a plugin approval process. In fact the launcher for the client has been modified to allow mods and additional libraries and files to be loaded and updated easily, and there have been no additional restrictions put into the server software and no talk of stopping distribution of the server software.

    Dinnerbone, the original creator of Bukkit, is literally stepping up to update it for 1.8. How is that ruining things?

    Yes, please stop posting bullshit. You're just exacerbating the problem here.

    Almost. Seph did know that Bukkit was owned by Mojang.
    https://twitter.com/EvilSeph/status/502384952944885760
    Just apparently he forgot what that actually means.

    Also, Seph was just using the EULA as an excuse. It has nothing to do with the situation. The core reason Seph left is because he was tired of the work and such, which he mentioned, and that's fine.

    It's him choosing to blame the EULA and other stuff and try to shut down the project that's not fine.

    'Cause the Bukkit team never put in the (large amount of) time and work to do it.

    Mojang is not shutting down Bukkit. Try reading the thread.

    EvilSeph wanted to stop the Bukkit project.
    Then mojang stepped in and said "No you can't do that, we'll update it instead since you won't".
     
    skyrimfan1 likes this.
  6. Offline

    _LB

    EvilSeph had a misconception. It's all fixed now. Relax. <Mod edit: Large text doesn't help getting your point across any more than regular text>
     
  7. Offline

    obscurehero

    I'm sorry, but I've looked over all those old announcements Rydian. There was no mention anywhere that Curse legally acquired Bukkit before and that Mojang acquired Bukkit after the Bukkit team went to Mojang. The curious thing is that most of the lead Bukkit team members stopped working at Bukkit and even after EvilSeph left Mojang he continued to run Bukkit.

    md_5 is right, there are some major legal issues that they must have already worked through? There was no mention anywhere of the legal ownership of Bukkit and in personal conversations with TnT talking about the EULA if he knew he didn't mention it.

    It's still up in the air what's going to happen to dev.bukkit.org and plugins. One might imagine that after 1.8 there might be another system for managing plugins using the plugin API as there is currently an approval process not managed by Mojang.

    I think, in general, operations are a pretty big question for now.
     
  8. Offline

    EDWIN3150

    Well I guess I have go back playing stupid EA games :(
     
  9. Offline

    tehface

    its like a shit storm in a tea cup.. really.. you guys need to re-read the post/s and or tweets, and blaming the EULA? lulz what a joke... fact is this will make minecraft/bukkit more stronger and it won't rip poor little kid parents off with huge amount of cash... best to get over it and get on with what we all like doing the most, playing some good old fashioned Minecraft :)
     
    AnorZaken likes this.
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    legodude192

    Thank you guys for all of your hard work, I hope that there is some version of this in the future, however I imagine that Mojang will ruin it. I am very sorry to hear that the Eula effected you like this, it has effected everybody. I was kinda surprised that Mojang bought Bukkit 2.5 yaers ago, but I thank you guys and your team for all of your hard work over the last several years. Your project has indeed been a huge success, and I think it's been pretty cool. I'm sure that what ever you guys move on to will be a success, just like this, so thank you for all of your hard work!
     
  11. Offline

    RoKGeppie

    lel, tehface, you need to re read, it is the eula and the majority know it, lel. this is minecrafts death.

    and ur not playing real minecraft anymore either, its been wrecked, mojang is to be mauled.
    they pulled dat final straw, i await the days of the auth servers and everything chuckling.

    cause thats what is coming :)
     
    legodude192 likes this.
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    yoitsjimby

    bukkit and coding plus minecraft funnest thing in my life and only thing in my life
     
  13. Offline

    legodude192

    lol, gotta hate minecraft realms, with great failures, come torture for everyone else
     
    RoKGeppie likes this.
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    ResultStatic

    ok im very confused, why does evil seph just want to end bukkit. i can understand that maybe he wants to quit but why would he want to end bukkit. i mean seriously their are plently of developers out there who can code bukkit. i looked at mojangs tweets and i still dont understand why they dont get rid of the vanilla servers and replace them with the bukkit server. i mean seriously who even downloads the vanilla server.
     
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    yoitsjimby

    This is pathetic..
    Worse than the EULA
     
  16. Offline

    Conarnar

    The way this is posted. I feel like this is some kind of troll, there the [/edit by mojang] and the To be continued... is just to simply create drama and suspense. I'm sure eventually, this will end with some big plot twist. And everything will be happily after after.
    Also, since Bukkit would have been in violation of the EULA about distributing if Mojang didn't own it, I believe that this would make Spigot in violation of the EULA.
     
  17. Offline

    yoitsjimby

  18. Offline

    dylanisawesome1

    This is all very confusing, but if bukkit is in fact coming to an end, then minecraft truly has lost all meaning to me. I hope this isn't the case, but if so, I've truly enjoyed the ride. Thank you for all the amazing experiences and people.
     
    Jimfutsu likes this.
  19. Offline

    Jimfutsu


    I truly agree. Multiplayer is what makes Minecraft Minecraft. But, according to the previous posts, Bukkit will be continued to at least 1.8.x. I will enjoy Bukkit till the end!
     
  20. Offline

    Machinemania3

    So, This Is The End Of Bukkit? :'(
     
  21. Offline

    caseif

    Check the edit and previous replies.
    Stop Typing Like Jaden Smith.
     
    LDX, AnorZaken, RiotShielder and 2 others like this.
  22. Offline

    Regablith

    Sadly in 1.8 Mojang will probably stop the development of Bukkit and enforce the Realms server a lot more, making it impossible for companies to sell servers or players to develop plugins. Also Spigot currently requires Bukkit to be updated (Doubt they would make their own stand-alone version) we won't be seeing that anytime soon then. ;( But it has been a great 2 years of plugin development and being with community. I wish EvilSeph and TnT the best of luck in their future careers and I hope they still stay around to interact with the huge community they have created by accident. R.I.P Bukkit/Craftbukkit; You will be missed. From the whole community of Bukkit

    The only problem now, is that I actually have to get a real job instead of being on the internet all day making plugins and doing something that brings a lot of joy into my life.
     
    hintss likes this.
  23. Offline

    PatrickFreed

    I don't know what it is with this building block game and spewing nonstop drama, but I fucking love it.
     
    Regablith likes this.
  24. Offline

    AmiT177

    Im not good in goodbyes
    So i will say it
    Thanks for all.
     
  25. Offline

    avery1227

    It was a good run Bukkit Team. Now we watch as Minecraft digs its own grave.


    -=={RIP BUKKIT}==-
     
  26. Offline

    CPUSKILLZ

    Pardon my language but you're talking out your poop sack. Mojang is saving bukkit, which would have died without their intervention. They should be praised for this, not complained about. Yes, Seph is gone, but that was his decision. At least this way we get to keep bukkit. Mojang knows this is a huge part of the minecraft community, and it is also one of their assets. They acquired this project, and as whenever a larger company acquires a smaller one there is no reason for the larger one to let the acquired company die unless that company becomes unnecessary, i.e. if they make a Modding/PluginAPI. //End rant.
     
    bastion likes this.
  27. Well thank you for all your work.
    I think this is reaally mad of Mojang that they strike-through your post.
    I don't hate Mojang, i like them, but I think this is mad.
     
    Skye likes this.
  28. Offline

    Tomasko

    Thank you for all Bukkit team :)
     
  29. Offline

    _FuryRider

    Maybe it's time for a new team to start a brand new modding platform for Minecraft? :p
     
  30. Offline

    RoKGeppie

    we need a total replacement for minecraft.

    get out that beta source :)

    and mojang isnt saving bukkit in any way, their just stealing the project
     
  31. Offline

    riebie

    How can they steal what they already own?
     
    bastion likes this.
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