Personal attack from bukkit.dev moderators. Banned without reasoning.

My main account name is AholaCraft, and our plugin developers name is lololmaker.

We have been trying to public our vanishing plugin without success. One of the bukkit.dev moderators did not want to approve our AholaVanish because we went in fight because his plugin did not work because pex is broken. We asked him to change to code to be PEX compatible, but he refused and told us to fix PEX, which we unfortunately couldn't. We did not say anything bad to him that should get us banned. I think that he was personally only angry at us because we said his plugin was broken, and he claimed that PEX is broken.

We were angry, and we "stole" his open source plugin, changed the code to be PEX compatible, and tried to get it approved. Of course we did not get it approved because it was stolen code. We were angry at that moment because I had donated to that plugin earlier, but still he did not want to change to code to make it PEX compatible. I admit that we did wrong, but we took all sources out GitHub and everywhere, to fix our mistake. We are very sorry to let this stupid mistake happen. We understand that stealing code like this is against the rules.

After that we made new plugin from scratch. Our developer built it totally from scratch, with nearly same functionality, but with ability to stay vanished when you log out, and also make fake Quit/join messages. Nothing was stolen from the previous Vanishing plugin. Of course some parts might look the same in the code, but that is only because you can only do certain things certain way.

After trying to get that plugin approved, waiting time went 14 hours. The plugin state changed many times. First it was viewed by one moderator, then another. There was at least 3 moderators viewing it, probably checking if the code was stolen like before. But it certainly was not. I contacted with "Contact us" form, explained the situation. This is what I posted there:

##############QUOTE FROM CONTACT ME FORM###############

We are willing to publish our plugin AholaVanish which hides you from other players without any other functionality.

Project page here:
http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/ahola_vanish/

Approving of the plugin has become personal fight between us and (removed name), because he did not want to make his vanishing plugin PermissionsEx compatible. We went in fight because he claimed that it was PEX fault that it did not work with it, but all we wanted was that he would change the code a bit to make it PEX compatible. He refused to change code in his plugin, and told us to fix PEX (which we couldn't of course do).

Then we made our own AholaVanish plugin FROM SCRATCH, but now the bukkit.dev moderators refuse to approve it because they say it is a copy, while it is not.

Our project has been removed now 2 or 3 times. Now it has remained hours and hours in review state, and its state has changed many times when other developers have been viewing it but seem to refuse it. Our plugin is very small, the approval should not take long. Checking the source reveals without a doubt that it is not copy, and the code is very short, so checking wouldn't take long.

I hope our plugin could get approved and the case closed, this is getting very irritating for the both sides.

##################################QUOTE ENDED##############

After that in about 3 hours (my wild guess, that's when I noticed it first time) we have been banned. Me and lololmaker. Reason for banning:
----------
This user has been banned: Upon reflection of the code presented for uploading to dev.bukkit.org, on multiple occasions (including your 100% complete rewrite), it was determined that you will be banned from dev.bukkit.org.
---------

I am not really sure what is going on. We fixed all of our mistakes, and tried to be as polite as possible to get our plugin approved status. I think that the moderators have made a mistake here. I do not want to attack anyone, I only would like to get the plugins approved as normally without a problem. There are already vanishing plugins, why not let us publish one more? Same with banning plugins, new ones come daily, with same functionality, but they still get approved.

We need new trial, the decision to ban us was motional, not rational.

 

0.o you didn't do anything wrong!!

 

Ooh I've been waiting for this post. I would remind people that there's always two sides to a story. This one's rather fun, from my perspective. I will append a new post (or edit this one if nobody posts below me). Just want to get in a quick "Not so fast!" before anyone thinks I'm evil :3

 

Could you please now tell me the reason why I am banned? I have not said anything funny.
I have explained the situation perfectly. I have not tried to make anyone look bad in my post. I did not reveal anybody's names.

Which part of my explanation is not correct? I have told only the truth. Can you point me any false argument in my post?

Do not forget to append the thread your removed from your plugin's forum. I think it is part of the story as well.

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

 

I use PermissionsEx and VanishNoPacket works completely fine for me.

 

Preface: Thank you for keeping your github up. It makes it a lot easier to provide evidence.


WALL OF TEXT. TL;DR AT THE END


A few days, maybe a week ago I got a report that my plugin EasyVanish (it's a simple vanish/unvanish with no other features like VNP has) wasn't working. Users were reporting that they weren't getting notification that anyone had vanished. Now this, this was odd. EasyVanish has one permission node. Only one! Same node to use /vanish as see the message about vanishing unless they were op.

I quickly checked my code to ensure it was right, and tested it out, both as op and with permissions assigned. All worked fine. Still, users insisted they weren't seeing it. I had a friend test out another permissions plugin (bPerms, I think?) and demonstrate that it worked both with and without op as long as the node was assigned. After this, I was informed the people with the problem were using PEX. So, I grabbed PEX, gave myself the node and tested. No message! What? What on earth?

So I investigated further. Wrote up a plugin testing out various methods of sending users messages based on permissions. Sure enough, the plugin failed consistently, and only on PermissionsEx. I had some conversations with folks familiar with permissions API and the inner workings of the system (such as krinsdeath of the Privileges plugin, and a Bukkit Team member or two, I forget who). What we concluded, was that PEX was breaking Bukkit.

PermissionsEx works by injecting itself, overwriting normal Bukkit classes, in order to handle permissions checks. This is done presumably to allow for the wildcard node. PEX's list of bugs caused by this method is huge and well documented. Summary? PEX breaks Bukkit and doesn't get updates nearly often enough to resolve this. Previous times I've submitted urgent bug reports about PEX breaking seriously important Bukkit features, I've been accused of lying and spent a long time arguing the point until it was finally fixed. So, I'm in no mood to believe PEX will work perfectly any time soon.

Thus, I advise that users upgrade to a permissions plugin that doesn't routinely and consistently break things. The above accuser responds instead with accusing me of being lazy to "fix" my plugin. There's nothing to "fix" in a plugin that runs fine on systems not broken. If the bridge you wish to cross in your car is destroyed in an unfortunate fishing accident, you don't demand your car manufacturer supply your car with jets to fly over it. You don't take that bridge.

In retaliation, clearly outlined in some rude posts that demonstrated no understanding of the Apache License (version 2) under which EasyVanish is licensed, weja and his partner downloaded my plugin, decompiled it, replaced about half the instances of the name EasyVanish with AlohaVanish and uploaded it to github without my name on it or any attribution or mention of license. Strike one. You can view their commit here. Note that it won't compile because they only replaced half the EasyVanish. Smooth.

Next, they add three more commits (1 2 3) slowly migrating the plugin over to their ideals, while not changing the line that doesn't work with PEX. Good going. They then proceed to upload this to BukkitDev claiming it as theirs. Strike two. In response to their project being swiftly deleted for stealing, they refer to me being the original author with "I can define him as former author if it's neccessary, but I've changed the code too much." Too much, eh? Those commits are hardly a revolution.

Now for my favorite part. Strike three. In the PM conversation they declare they will create a new vanish plugin from scratch. Excellent! We can end this nonsense and go back to work. But wait, they said from scratch. What are these commits then? (1 2) Oh! It's just my code still, with some more changes and covering up of tracks. They then resubmit this "from scratch" plugin as a new project. At this point they're banned.



tl;dr

They submitted my code
They were rejected
So they edited a few more lines and resubmitted as mine again.
Banned.

 

This is complete bullshit. The plugin is built from scratch, some of the functions are just same because you cannot make vanishing without them! Your statement is completely false. Our plugin is not copied from yours.

I have been hosting minecraft servers for a year now.
I run 3 servers now. I have quite a lot of experience, and I love what I do.
We already have created few plugins for our server, and published them in bukkit.dev.

Why on earth would I do something so stupid and make everything fall just for this tiny plugin?
Listen. I am not an idiot. We gave up with your plugin, and decided to make new because yours was not fitting for our purposes no matter what is the reason. We do not use VanishNoPacket, because it is complicated. It has many permissions, features, and else.

I have used it before, but after update you suddenly explode if you have .* node. Or you make smoke cloud.
I did not personally like VanishNoPacket, so I started using EasyVanish. Then we got problem with that, and decided to make new plugin that suits our needs.

Stop saying that the plugin is copied. We did not copy anything. We are only two small persons from around world who are trying to create nice minecraft communities. We would not lose everything just because of this. We did not intentionally copy your plugin, if some parts are same, it is ONLY because some functions are needed for vanishing.

I also want to say that the preview time of the plugin took 15 hours. Then nothing happened, and I sent the "Customer Contact" ticket, and got banned very soon after that. The only reason cannot be the plugin copying, I assume.

I want to quote myself to the banning plugins.
Banning uses always the same method. It stops the player joining event. Every banning plugin uses this same method as far as I know. However, you accept new plugins that use this method, and do not claim that they are copies from earlier ones. This is what is also happening with this case.

Now could we get pardoned? This is mistake from both sides I believe.
I did not want any kind of war, but you took it a bit personally. I do not question your abilities to write java. I do not question anything what you do here. I only would like to get back to bukkit.dev and keep growing my community.

I am sorry for this problem, and I am very honest for saying this.
We did not want to copy your plugin. Some parts are same for the functioning, but using the same event is not copying.

EasyVanish is 9.6KiB
AholaVanish is 3.5 KiB

AholaVanish cannot be created by editing only few lines of your code. I promise.

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

 

EasyVanish is 3.5 KiB when you delete the metrics class and the maven files.
I just demonstrated how it was created by editing my code, line by line. Please check out the commits linked

 

I want to quote myself to the banning plugins! Listen to what I am saying!
You accuse us to copying, because there says "remake" instead of "built from scratch" inside the code?

I cannot believe you are saying that. Remake means that is has been built again. I assume.
If not, then my Enflish sucks. I am sorry if that one word causes so much confusion, but it is not very professional to choose it and use it as "proof" that this is copy.

 

Please, read the commits. They're very obvious, and damning.

 

This thread has been a fun read The commits, to me, seem to be enough evidence to prove that what mbaxter is saying is true.

 

I do not understand at all what you want me to read.
It says "plugin recoded by lololmaker" is this your proof?
I know lololmaker worked hard on this plugin. And as to quote myself, we would not break our future plans just to copy your damn plugin! What is so hard to understand in that!

You are too proud person to admit that we haven't violated anything. You just decided to ban us because we got on your nerves. This is what I think.

The plugin does not relate to yours in any way. Saying recoded doesn't mean has anything to do with you plugin.

 

This about sums up this topic:

 

I do not also think that we have hurt anyone. Publishing our plugin would only add one more plugin to the sea of plugins. I still want to quote myself to ban plugins. You can compare them and point easily that they are "copies" as you can do in this case.

My plugin has same code lines, because it has the same goal to achieve. Vanishing. It uses certain events to make vanishing possible. Your plugin does the same. With the addition that our plugin also works with PEX. This doesn't make the copies from each other either.

Then you quote me and try to degrade me by quoting only part of my sentence.
That is wrong and intentional attempt to mislead me or others from the real case.

You cannot take part of sentence out of it's environment. It loses its meaning. I did not mean "I do not understand at all".

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

 

I see no need for this to continue. You stole a plugin, twice. You were banned for it. You are not welcome on BukkitDev.