So long, and thanks for all the fish

With a heavy heart, I must say goodbye to Bukkit. Bukkit has been a huge part of my life for the past 3 and a half years, and one chapter I am sad to close. My start with Bukkit was as a regular community member seeking out a server mod to use to replace hMod, so I could run my own small private server (I think all I wanted was Teleportation at the time, which hMod allowed). This evolved into writing tutorials on running a CraftBukkit server (as there were very few at the time), and spending countless hours in Bukkit Help spreading my knowledge to those Server Admins who needed support getting their server running, or diagnosing their problems. Bukkit Help became my personal stomping ground as I became intimately aware of all changes going on with CraftBukkit from a Server Admin point of view. Those interactions led me to want to take a more active role in assisting the community, eventually leading up to being approached by EvilSeph to take on a moderator role.

Fast forward a year, and I can proudly call all the Bukkit Staff, including EvilSeph, friends. When Mojang hired the original team, the question was posed about who should be project lead should EvilSeph step down, as a succession plan is very important to sustaining any project, Bukkit included. The question was put to a vote, and my name was presented as the candidate of choice. I’ll admit, this completely blew me away, but I was honored to be chosen. Luckily, EvilSeph continued to remain on as the primary lead of the project, while I proceeded to handle the day to day tasks. Bukkit Help matured along with the project, requiring less personal attention, so I branched out into every aspect of Bukkit, with the exception of handling any development (I think I made a javadoc update once though). I am proud to say I had a hand in creating the PR Handling process, managing BukkitDev, managing forum staff and making sure I was available in every aspect of the project - from helping to write our announcements, to bringing on new staff members when needed and so much more.

What is often misunderstood about Bukkit was how the organization was ran. There has never been a decision made that was not made via a committee. There has always been a group consensus on all aspects - from handling BukkitDev approvals to forum rules and finally, yes, shutting down the project. This was truly a community run project. The core team was all formed from the existing community. The forum staff was all made up of community members. BukkitDev approvals were all handled by community members. Volunteers ran the project in every aspect, and as a team, we decided how to best proceed with decisions. As for Mojang’s involvement, not once in my time as a Bukkit Administrator did I hear from Mojang, or felt I could reach out to them for assistance when required and it came as a complete surprise that Mojang was willing to step up and help out. In the over two years that Mojang has claimed to own Bukkit, the original core developers hired by Mojang and Mojang itself was not present when we needed them most with the exception of EvilSeph himself continuing to pour countless hours into the project, at risk to his own personal health. Perhaps Bukkit wouldn’t have been shut down, or had such a difficult time maintaining the project had we known we could work closer with Mojang, as well as avoiding this whole EULA confusion.

The decision to keep the acquisition of the Bukkit codebase a secret was made between Mojang and Curse, which only recently came to light. I was completely unaware that I had spent the last two years of my life as a Bukkit Administrator, and successor to the project lead, under the illusion that the project was independently ran. Had I known back then perhaps my choice would have been different, perhaps not. It’s easy to speculate on what might have been, but unless faced head on with the choice, the decision is not always clear.

What I do know is the recent events has not changed the inevitable decision I have came to today, and its one that has been long coming. I am now the proud father of a beautiful 4 month old baby girl, who lights up my life, while also consuming my free time. I no longer have the countless evenings and weekends available to spend working on new processes, smoothing out issues, and responding to forum posts. I hung on this long only because I couldn’t leave knowing the project was hurting for volunteers, and I couldn’t just walk away given the current state. Bukkit has grown to be an extremely large project, and is incredibly time consuming to manage. I felt that I was abandoning the community of which I have grown so fond, as well as EvilSeph himself. I could not come to make that decision, it didn’t feel right.

Now that Mojang has assumed control of all aspects of Bukkit, that gut wrenching decision is more palatable. Not because I harbor any ill will toward Mojang or the Bukkit community, but because I know Mojang has the resources available to really improve Bukkit. They can work with Curse to ensure BukkitDev has adequate staffing to handle the rigorous approval process - which has an incredible track record for keeping the community safe from those less savory elements of human nature. They can help when we have bugs that should be fixed in Minecraft itself. They can ensure whatever community contributions added to Bukkit can be taken into the Minecraft codebase itself. Now, more than ever, our community can actively contribute to Minecraft in a very real, direct way. You should submit your PR’s now, your code may very well contribute to the base game itself, an aspect which makes me want to dust off my 13 year old Java books and start developing again. In any event, should Mojang want any help in transitioning over the project to their control, I will gladly provide assistance where I can.

I would personally like to thank all the volunteers who have contributed to Bukkit over the years. Our forum moderators have done wonders keeping this a welcoming, warm community. Our developers who repeatedly spend hours updating Minecraft, adding API and improving the codebase. Our many other unsung volunteers handling aspects from PR handling, to advice. Last but definitely not least, our BukkitDev staff who have spent countless hours keeping the community safe, as one of the most thankless tasks we have.

I am extremely excited to see what Mojang can do with their vast resources to help the very community where some of its most prominent developers had their roots. This is exciting news for the Minecraft community in general, and perhaps when my daughter is old enough to play, I will meet up with you again on one of your fantastic servers, enjoying the features of one of your cool plugins. For now though, my family and my daughter comes first for my attention, as well as my heart.

 

I'm sure most people didn't read through TnT's entire post, but I did. To get an idea of how Mojang viewed the Bukkit Team and project, just listen to the tone of the replies on Twitter from Mojang's employee's. When the team decided to shut down Bukkit, did Mojang work constructively to work out issues? Or did they simply bring in Curse to get accounts reset in haste? Apparently, the Bukkit team was an easily replacement minor asset.

Here is one part of TnT's thought's about Mojang that you should read:

 

ROFL, drama queens left and right. I couldn't be any happier that the guys who kept bukkit back are getting out of the way. Maybe now bukkit can blast off or die... but this middle of the road bloatship has got to die.

 

Who are you referencing?

 

Confirmed for troll account? Are there any moderators left?

 

Just technically he might have all rights to state so, since it appears that at least some of those things could have happened or might still happen:
- He is most likely still rolling on the floor, laughing.
- Drama left and right.
- Queens left and right.
- Bukkit was kept back (don't ask me how).
- People are out of the way (don't ask me who).
- In theory ex-staff could blast off or die (don't ask me how).
- Middle of the road bloatship always have to die (including plugins such as NCP).

Well... some might be debatable, but you have to file an official counter-notice to get it pursued by staff, that would be the report-icon.

 

Goodbye bukkit. TnT please make a new client like bukkit.

 

Ill give you my turtle.
(?i)