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

    MoeMix

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    Ultimate_n00b

    uh.. he already did :confused:
     
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    Acharige

    I've been using Bukkit a lot longer than some people around here. I used the old hMod when it was released as well. Although I joined quite recently, I've been using Bukkit since it was first released. Up to this day, I will say how pleased I was with their outstanding work. I no longer have a server, as it closed almost a year ago.

    Nothing lasts forever. Although the Bukkit project is still being continued by Dinnerbone, the work, and time that EvilSeph has invested will never be forgotten. I wouldn't necessarily say that I agree with everything that Mojang and Bukkit has done/doing, however, I respect both sides, and surely that's what is best for everyone to do.

    Thanks again EvilSeph, you changed Minecraft forever. (Along with some of the other Bukkit Staff members).
     
    AnorZaken, Skye and xYourFreindx like this.
  5. Offline

    NinjaZidane

    dockter Beating a dead horse is never fun...until a margin of your userbase demands it.
     
  6. Sure there are work arounds. I was just stating there is no direct way of changing an inventories title. I could do a bunch of cool things with it, but unfortunately I cant without having to close, and reopen a new inventory.
     
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    Aarthek

    So ah.. er.. wait.. Mojang owned Bukkit but the developers of Bukkit didn't know that, and then tried to shut down Bukkit, over confusion of the EULA. So now Mojang is going to continue development of Bukkit (but it sounds like Mojang was always in charge of Bukkit) but it's not the official modding API, but some kind of bandaid..

    So.. if I got that all straight. The question I have is can anyone tell me why Bukkit never had an official release in 1.7 then? If Mojang owned Bukkit wouldn't you have thought we'd have a official 1.7 a long time ago.. Yeah we had a couple of Beta's but we never in the last what 10 months has an official stable release.

    That is where my confusion is..
     
  8. Offline

    Geekhellmc

    After I commented I saw the tweets of Mojang and Dinnerbone saying it will continue! Hurray!

    It takes time to get rid of all the bugs in the new update, and at the time it's becomes an official release, BOOM an update of MC came.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 9, 2016
  9. Offline

    Enzer

    Mojang acquired Bukkit from Curse at the same time they hired the original four main devs (as a reminder when Curse bought Bukkit, Dinnerbone became an employe of Curse).

    Curse's relationship with Bukkit was one of providing financial aid/server support, outside that they were hands off on the project.

    Mojang's relationship with Bukkit, before today as far as we understand, was to clear Bukkit of any legal gray area they could potential be in while being hands off on the project. There is also a supposed benefit (pure conjecture, no supporting evidence) of allowing Mojang to not set a precedent of giving a third party group a software license which could cause its own issues and drama down the road.
     
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  10. Offline

    Skyost

  11. Offline

    bastion


    https://github.com/Bukkit/Bukkit/graphs/contributors

    If you take a look at the graphs you will see between grumm and dinnerbone the basis of bukkit was written, if not for these 2 coders bukkit would probably not exist.
     

  12. Seriously? Read the beginning of the post: I said It's my understanding/prediction not what is definately the case. Do you want me to put a huge disclaimer at the top "THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION"? Not a rage, or a flame. A legitimate post.

    Guidelines for quality posting:
    Read the post you're talking about, and provide arguments for your side of the case. Don't just say "Stop saying bullshits." like some kid. Sure, my post might not have as much evidence as I would like, but I did say its MY understanding/prediction.


    Thanks for your understanding.

    Also, bastion look at the last 2 years, dinnerbone didn't make a SINGLE commit. Source: https://github.com/Bukkit/Bukkit/graphs/contributors
     
  13. Offline

    Etian

    Cry me a river.
    Mojang wins GG WP.
    Praise the new EULA.
     
  14. Offline

    BMX_ATVMAN14

    Welp, It's been interesting, I loved this community, and browsed daily. Made some awesome friends as well. I'd like to see where Bukkit and Mojang take this, but will it be the same? Who knows. Looking forward to the future.
     
  15. Offline

    Skyost

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    bastion


    yes, now read my post again. dinnerbone stated that he "wrote it", I said that with out him and grumm bukkit would probably not exist. I should add sk89 also, if you notice maintaining bukkit versus creating/writing it is an a and b kind of apple and orange kind of thing.

    dinnerbone went to mojang, dinnerbone did the first update after the merger. after that point, others on the team have updated and maintained bukkit.
     
    Etian, skyrimfan1 and Skyost like this.
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    skyrimfan1

    Honestly, I'm tired of people hating on Mojang. Like Skyost said, they're only trying to improve the game. I'm not saying that I agree with everything that they're doing atm (*cough cough* EULA) but at least, give them some respect.

    IMHO, you sounded like a 2 year old. And your opinion was utter bullshit; if anything, Mojang's going to work towards improving the game so more people will get interested.
     
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    sablednah


    Actually you could say Dinnerbone has been contributing heavily for the last two years. Just significantly further up the codebase...
     
  19. bastion

    OK I agree, you can have this one. :)

    sablednah
    Fair enough. See my comment on bastion's later post (the one you quoted)

    Skyost
    1. I already read that post.
    2. Your arguments rest on "and you know it", and that Mojang don't want to impose Realms. Really? The Eula makes it impossible to make money, or even break even on a server. Thus, the public server community will die down allowing Mojang to take outrageous amounts of money from the (often 5 year old) players (who are already logging into their parents' PayPal etc.) who don't want to/can't run their own local server etc. for their friends (how many younger players can port forward?) and therefore have to buy Realms.
    3. I'm sorry, but I actually don't understand what you're trying to say (or the point - I read the article) in that bit about paying for 10 years.

    skyrimfan1
    Seriously? I was asking a legitimate question: would it be better if I put that at the top of my post to make it clearer for people who didn't read the bit where I said that it was MY understanding.
    I looked through the changelogs, and there haven't been any really interesting updates for about 18 months. That is obviously very subjective, but I don't personally know anyone who disagrees with that view. I remember when the updates were things like "Added Nether" or just generally stuff that EVERYONE who played the game liked. Right now, it seems they are only catering for the younger player base. Or that niche of players in their 40s with the same ideals.

    Skyrimfan not so much (thank God you disagree with the EULA, there was someone on the spigot forums actually trying to defend that crap), but you and Skyost are the Mojang fanboys I was referring to. Ready to defend Mojang's mistakes at any moment.
     
  20. Offline

    EvilDarkmirror

    EvilSeph Stepps down from leading the bukkit development.

    and, ofcourse, the Internet gets over dramatic, saying that this will end Minecraft as a whole, and that the EULA changes will destroy all servers and everything on earth etc etc etc.

    Anyways, Bukkit will of course be continued by Mojang
    (by the same guys who made it in the first place [dinnerbone <3]),
    and it's still not the end of Minecraft,
    nor have any Servers been actually taken down by Mojang.
    Get realistic people. Nothing has been destroyed by the EULA Changes.
    All of the changes you have seen happening,
    are because other People are Overreacting.


    Moral of the story:
    People Love Drama. (especially the internet)
     
    markdf likes this.
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    Skyost

    1. So do not say that I have no argument.
    2. Yes, you know it. You know that Mojang try to do the best for their game. Elsewhere, they did not keep it updated since 2009 !
    3. If Mojang stops making money, they can survive ten years.
     
  22. Offline

    000nick

    ALL Mojang had to do was kill pay2win, but now they're also killing Bukkit. All they had to do was make some licensing etc. with Bukkit and ACTUALLY code a mod/plugin api, and then Minecraft would be as golden as a notch apple, but instead they are doing "what is right" and essentially killing the community. Mojang fucked up badly.
     
  23. Offline

    LDX

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    Acharige

    That meme is overly used. I've seen it used on Spigot, and I even made a post using that meme. >.> xD
     
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    niels1189

    I laughed too damn hard at this, I know the gif but wow.. Right place at right time.
    Next thing we know, they will allow selling of certain items only on their realms.

    If you ask me, this is just a stupid way to earn more money, screw you mojang for messing it up.
     
    TheSimpZone likes this.

  26. 1. The points in that argument were not valid (at least from my understanding)
    2. Firstly: stop with the "you know it" crap. Secondly: sure, they used to do the best for the community, but pretty much since Notch handed over to Jens there has been a more cold, and calculating air to the game, along with a more and more apparent attempt to take advantage of the large community (see my point about Realms/EULA)
    3. Still not getting the point. What does them still being able to survive have to do with... whatever it is we're arguing about?

    BTW I'm off to sleep now so I likely won't reply until later tomorrow. Prepare your answers for me to either rip them to shreds, or (unlikely) that I will somehow see your side of the argument. :) I love it when someone else will also stick to their point and actually develop their answers more as the argument continues, rather than decaying to some pathetic "hur hur no won lieks u cos u r meen to sum ppl".
     
  27. Offline

    Enzer

    You should research more of what actually went down today, otherwise your anger comes off as a bit strange. :p

    Mojang isn't killing Bukkit, they are making sure Bukkit continues. EvilSeph attempted to shut down Bukkit, Mojang said he is not allowed to because Mojang has owned Bukkit for two and a half years and so it is not EvilSeph's call.

    Dinnerbone will be doing the 1.8 version of Bukkit as EvilSeph has stepped down from working on Bukkit. There was no need to do any licensing as Mojang owns Bukkit in both name and code when they bought it from Curse.

    Bukkit is not going anywhere anytime soon.
     
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    Metro1102

    It's all gonna be okay, we all know that the updates that we get are only to improve our community! Besides if there were no server API, Minecraft would become dead within a matter of months!
     
  29. Offline

    _LB

    I don't recall EvilSeph stepping down, as I remember it his tweet said he was all for continuing work on Bukkit if that was what Mojang wanted. Can someone link me to where he said he was stepping down?
     
  30. Offline

    Enzer

    You misunderstood EvilSeph's tweet. He said that if Mojang wanted to continue bukkit development themselves, he was all the happier for it. As in "All for [Mojang] continuing work on Bukkit if that was what Mojang wanted".

    For proof of EvilSeph quitting, you can check the spoilered part of the OP of this thread and also the fact that EvilSeph is no longer noted as a Bukkit Dev next to his name.
     
  31. Offline

    KaBob

    I'm pretty sure that trying to shut down the entire project without even trying to save it pretty much removes any chance he wants to keep working on it.
     
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