Mojang and the Bukkit Project

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

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  1. NathanWolf Poor handling since the closure. See the post by TnT and the misinformation spread here.
     
  2. Offline

    DHLF

    To my point of view MJ has "bought" bukkit(or parts of it) two years ago secretly.
    Therefore some aspects of the GNU/GPL3 were broken as stated by Wolvereness so he decided to defend his work using the DMCA.
    His work is used in craftbukkit.
    So any craftbukkit server out there (from #703 1.1-R1 upwards) is breaking the law as well.
    Maybe I worry too much about this, but who knows what the courts will decide?

    I side with you, Rachel2560 that Wolvereness did not want to hurt those fine servers but I am missing a statement from him to make at least this point more clear.
     
  3. DHLF Until told otherwise, continue as normal then ;)
     
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  4. Offline

    DHLF

    Yes this would be the next what I would have "asked" ;)

    On the other hand.. it would take a very long time to ask every single server-owner to remove "infringed software".
     
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  5. Offline

    Rachel2560


    There most probably won't be any court case.

    Maybe if Mojang believes it owns or can use his code and continue on regardless then he might issue a court case but afaik it's just a simple DMCA to Google to remove that content from Google (SERPS) search results.

    The implication is however now he is asserting rights it would be silly for anyone to openly use his code in similar projects or be distributing his code.
     
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  6. Offline

    NathanWolf

    What closure? The closure is the effect, not the cause - and from what I can see, it's still Wolvereness's fault.


    Well, here's where I try and be careful, because I have the utmost repsect for TnT (and 99.9% of the bukkitdev staff, for that matter).

    But, to pick apart his goodbye a bit...

    If Bukkit had shut down due to lack of resources, or directly due to this whole "EULA confusion" issue, then I'd buy this. But, no, Bukkit shut down because of the selfish actions of a single person.

    This is the most common reason I've heard. Devs got upset when they found out they were "working for a big company this whole time".

    But at the same time, they talk about how completely independent Bukkit has been, how Mojang has never once stepped in to do anything, for better or worse.

    So how is that not an independent project? Do you want Mojang's help, or not?

    You can't be frustrated because you wanted to work on an independent project, and Mojang did their best to maintain your independence... but at the same time didn't step in and help. You can't really have both.

    For that matter, you've been contributing open source code to an open source project for a couple years, no one is claiming ownership on that code (right, because they can't...) - so in terms of where you spent your time, and how it got used- has anything changed?

    You're not working to line the pockets of a big company any more (or less) than you were before. Mojang makes money off of Bukkit, without ever having to sell it.

    Have they? I mean that as a serious question- I know they've locked everyone out of the github repo, but my impression is that happened after Wolvereness threw his little legal fit. Is that not the case?

    Please note that all quests in this message are real questions, and not meant to be facetious. Barring any sort of actual statement from someone fully in the know (and I haven't read all of the goodbye messages) I'm still really confused about all this.

    And I'd love it if Wolvereness could make a public statement about what his motivations were. I've really been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt through all this, but he sure has made it hard.
     
  7. Offline

    Necrodoom

    NathanWolf bukkit has been declared dead by the team though EvilSeph post, before this drama happened. You need to check your time line.
     
  8. Offline

    NathanWolf

    My timeline says this:

    1. Mojang purchases Bukkit, hires core team away.
    - Everyone freaks out
    - Next day, Bukkit lives on.
    .... years pass
    2. EvilSeph tries to close Bukkit. Mojang says no.
    - Everyone freaks out
    - Next day, Bukkit lives on.
    3. Wolvereness decides he wants to take his toys and go home.
    - Everyone freaks out
    - Next day, bukkit repos and download gone, Spigot killed, community dead.

    What did I miss?
     
    Padeius Etoh likes this.
  9. Offline

    Rachel2560

    Mojang took control way before Wolf issued a DMCA.
     
  10. Offline

    Violetstar

    I have spent a lot of time reading up on this issue, I have read on comments from both sides, read up on almost all the history I can find, and I still find myself siding with Mojang on this. In fact I found a part of the money trail that seemed so ambiguous before.

    When bukkit was in its early stage and got an overwhelming response from the public, they had no money to support servers or whatnot and needed a backer. Curse stepped in, provided them services and capital to help them get on their feet. Because of Curse's investment, they owned Bukkit, as far as an open source project could be owned. One bit of interesting information I uncovered last night is that Mojang did not buy bukkit from bukkit. They actually purchased the rights and the servers from Curse. Even a free open source project needs to get money from somewhere.

    "Why didn't I get paid?" This seems to be the general question being asked here. Did everyone forget what the word "volunteer" means? And exactly at what point did you figure out that you were doing this for free for Mojang? It wouldn't be the fact that you are programming code FOR MINECRAFT would it?

    You guys were already providing Mojang with free code weather they owned Bukkit or not. You are all mad that Mojang was going to "take over" but you never took the time to realize what that meant. You just took a few misspoken lines of text and /ragequit.

    Sorry, but the dev's still don't get any sympathy from me.
    Star
     
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  11. Offline

    extended_clip

    I have been thinking about this whole situation for a few days and all the stuff I have seen is pretty much making it clear...

    The funny thing is you are always going to slave for Mojang in a way if you continue to play/develop with Minecraft period.

    You can change the API, change the name, change anything. It still requires Minecraft...

    After trying to see both sides,
    I don't see how you could be so offended or feel ripped off by Mojang or even feel used at that. They are the ones allowing you to do the things you can do with their game without enforcing/saying too much at all.

    I have always seen greed in the community and I think that has a lot to do with it.

    Remember, you can change the license, change the code, change the people.
    It is still Minecraft!
    Mojang is still going to make you feel used if you already feel that way, they are going to make money off of you if you feel that way. You are still developing for Minecraft!

    Lets all, as a community. Act a bit more mature.
    All of the conspiracy and pointing fingers in not necessary.
     
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  12. Offline

    WyrdWyrd

    You make a lot of good points, TnT.

    You also make a good point, Violetstar.

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

    NathanWolf


    Ah, my mistake. But I still disagree.

    Mojang was trying to maintain the independence of the project for as long as it could, right up until someone outside of their control tried to shut it down.

    Are we to expect them to suddenly divert all of their resources into the project? How could they have handled it better?

    I mean, PR-wise, yes their Twitter comments weren't the best- but you know what, neither was EvilSeph suddenly and independently declaring this whole project dead.

    This project was supposed to be about the community. EvilSeph can leave if he wants, all the devs and staff can leave- that's called being a volunteer. I'm confident this project would live on if it were allowed to. Other people would step in, someone possibly could even replace EvilSeph as the project lead. Even with Mojang seizing control of the official repos and forums, we could easily have started a new project on a fork. The community would probably wither, but eventually adapt.

    Spigot, at least, would have lived on just fine.

    But none of that can happen because we're not allowed to use Wolvereness' code. His LGPL'd, open-source code.

    The only people that have had the power to legitimately shut Craftbukkit down from the beginning have been Mojang, since despite what they claim we have been stealing redistributing their code in a dubiously legal way from the beginning.

    But somehow, our use of decompiled, private, copyrighted code is not the issue here- it's our use of code freely submitted by a volunteer under an open source license. That is, frankly, mind boggling.

    I already regret chiming into this conversation at all, but so far everything in here has been a lot of drama with no real effect, right up until Wolvereness decided to say "screw you guys, I'm going home".


    Took control, yes.
    Forced everyone to leave? No.. I don't think so?
    Shut down the project? No, definitely not.

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

    Necrodoom

    NathanWolf a lot, since you failed to take note of the fact that evilseph post was a team decision. If you actually read his post, you'd understand.

    Edit: and I see ignoring bukkit rules is still a trend for you.
     
  15. Offline

    Rachel2560


    By letting people know they actually owned the project? So people can decided what they want to do or whether they want to contribute to the project.

    By offering some support? Everyone seems to think it's cash and people want paying, that is simply untrue. If they wanted cash they wouldn't be contributing free code in the first place. Support could be some code to make the job easier, advice or information about upcoming releases to prepare people for what is a head.

    I think the biggest thing though has to be the uncomfortable feeling that you have secretly been owned by a large company whilst under the guise of a "public community project" but not only that, owned by a company that is directly related to the project and directly benefits from it whilst offering no support in any way shape or form and then when the volunteers are overworked, bunt out and worried about a lot of upcoming work and possible EULA problems (because they didn't know Mojang owned them) and then they quit only to find out Mojang owned them, that is a bit tough to take.

    And really Mojang should of paid them for their work not because they wanted cash but because free labor for a rich company is just taking the piss (sorry to be blunt).
     
  16. Which rules in particular ?

    To me that looks like a clique-thing. Not in the sense of "evil" but of creating their own view on things, again nothing to worry about, since it is very common, but seemingly it resulted in a clearly biased view on things concerning the relationship to Mojang. It seems that the work load and the fear or anticipation future-events resulted in the team not wanting to go on. All provided i am not missing crucial background information only available to Mojang and/or the Bukkit team (lead).

    The time-line problem, by the way, would include that the "big surprise Mojang owns us" happened after the "team decision".

    I don't want to be more "rude", but i clearly rather second/assume what NathanWolf is writing, based on the course of events and the additional information i could draw from various sources. If Mojang could've helped more during the last year i don't know, some day we might know, why things happened at which point of time.

    I agree that the project not being "officially independent" may be hard to take, but given the purpose and the licensing-ground it's built for/on i don't quite get it.

    Mojang could have caused similar uproar by telling, though, and the itneresting part could be why EvilSeph hasn't simply revealed it? If the project was to be as independent as possible, only he could have done so, or negotiated a way to do it together with Mojang. Probably he did not for the same reasons as Moajng had not. It looks to me, as if there was more tension between the actual Bukkit team lead and Mojang earlier on, obviously that did not get resolved in time. If they were too taxed, i really regret that they didn't try to extend their managment (team lead..) by people who could have helped them. Probably the problem was with blending away other kinds of views - while they did a great job, they also had a lot of "exclusiveness" to them, lots of esteem about standards and how to interact with other parts of the Minecraft community.
     
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  17. Offline

    extended_clip


    Why on earth do you think any Bukkit developer is entitled to any compensation from Mojang.

    So what if they "made Minecraft into what it is today"

    Its not like it was forced on anyone to develop Bukkit. We all make choices in life...

    They took on Minecraft as a hobby. They enjoyed the game enough to create a community based around modding the game they bought. Even if Mojang owned Bukkit for 2 years without anyone knowing. Why should the developers of Bukkit get paid because of that? I am not saying I am unappreciative of anything related to Bukkit or anyone who contributed, buy why does contributing to something you chose to, knowing when committing to the project, it wasn't a job that provided a salary and benefits, entitle anyone to any form of compensation.
     
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  18. Offline

    Rachel2560


    You should work for Mojang, I think you pretty much have the same attitude.

    You don't see how unethical that is? How wrong it was to not help at all?
     
  19. Offline

    extended_clip



    You don't see how immature you sound?

    Its not like Mojang held a gun to the devs head and said Play my game, like it, and modify it to your wits end....

    The person who typed that code, behind that computer screen, did it by choice and for personal reasons just as much as they did it for the community.

    Do you think they would have created Bukkit if they did not have an interest in it?
    Do you think they would have created bukkit if they did not enjoy Minecraft?

    Minecraft sells without Bukkit. Minecraft sold before Bukkit. Minecraft will sell after Bukkit.

    I can see if Bukkit was a standalone game that was created by the Bukkit team.

    Bukkit is an addition to a game that is not Bukkits to take credit for...

    Yeah, I ran servers for 3 years which relied on Bukkit. I have been around and also supported the community to the best of my abilities (not saying I did more than any regular person who had an interest and was part of the Bukkit community), but I am also mature enough to know that some of the reasons I have seen for the collapse of Bukkit are very immature and it does show that there is tons of personal resentment towards Mojang. They did nothing but allow Bukkit to be something we can enjoy. It don't matter if they made it or not. They made Minecraft.

    Another thing to note:
    Mojang owned Bukkit for 2 years and actually came out when Bukkit was really going to shut down.

    If they would have kept quiet and we didn't know that information, we would still be sitting right here in just about the same spot we are now...
     
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  20. There are two sides for the helping thing - Mojang can't just "help", you see what happened on some occasions when they actually tried to (Edit: or did, historians will write about that later on), provided they didn't plan the downfall of Bukkit like this (missing information there). So both need to have some base of communication for Mojang helping them, especially because one-sided interference from Mojang would hardly have been accepted. As stated by NathanWolf, you can't have both "just so": totally independent project and Mojang putting more resources in to help - for a mixed state you would need both to work together on it (missing a lot of information on what was tried by whom etc.).

    More edit: Of course storeys are thinkable with the company secretly helping the project with much more money, and when it gets revealed, they have been saviors and saints alltogether. Doesn't seem that much realistic though, besides my impression is that there were other things in the way than get written here and there.
     
  21. Offline

    NathanWolf

    He failed to state that it was a team decision. I read the post. References?


    Oh, because I mentioned the oh-so-evil S-word? I think it's relevant that a Bukkit dev's temper tantrum has closed down other related projects that would otherwise have survived since the staff didn't all decide to give up and screw over the community.

    Otherwise, I'm not sure what this "trend" is you're referring to, or why you feel the need to personally attack me here.
     
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  22. Offline

    Rachel2560

    At the end of the day you now have Mojang the company that owns this project refusing to make this project legal. Yet you keep arguing their cause.

    That really about sums up how good Mojang really are and shows why they should of never been involved. They can't buy something and claim they wanted it to have independence when it didn't need to be brought in the first instance.

    It's quite clear that they saw Bukkit as useful hence the "purchase" whilst at the same time wanting it to remain at arms length so that it can distribute it's server software even de-obfuscated in a manner that is less that legit. In effect wanting their cake and eating it at the same time.

    And they ended it for the same reason are you mad? or it that umadbro?
     
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  23. NathanWolf Also, by 'the way they handled it' I mean the tweets, the irc messages, the immediate takeover with no real visible effort or communication, and of course the obvious lies spread in this very thread. CraftBukkit doesn't contain any minecraft code indeed. Never heard anything so ridiculous used as a defence.
     
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  24. Offline

    extended_clip


    Nope because unlike people like you. I have a life when I turn my computer off. I dont have to run a Server to be successful. I dont NEED a game to make my life complete. As I enjoyed my time with minecraft, I can also be just as happy without it.
     
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  25. Offline

    Rachel2560


    Says the one thinking of himself, blaming the people that made the project possible simply because they exercised their right to quit, because he has a "life" and doesn't want to play Minecraft, yes right.

    I fully support their right to quit and wouldn't care if all servers stay at 1.7 versions or stay vanilla.
     
  26. Offline

    extended_clip

    Im not going to argue. Grow up.
     
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  27. Offline

    WyrdWyrd

    You are right, Bukkit isn't dead. (even though I just sent off a sort of provocative tweet where I said 1.8 is the Death of Bukkit update or something)

    But in my experience, the way these things go, is it all hinges on public confidence. Any prolonged inability to download the craftbukkit jar, combined with so many staff resigning all at the same time, will make people view the project as either dead or rapidly dying.

    If Dinnerbone... or Mojang... or someone somewhere doesn't do something to change perceptions . REAL. SOON. NOW. then, IMHO, the Bukkit project will, for all intents and purposes become dead.

    So then Mojang will be the pwners of a project nobody does anything with anymore.

    "Hail, Eldrad. King... of.. nothing."

    Mojang gotta get their A-game on. Stat.

    --
    Furry cows moo and decompress.
     
  28. Offline

    NathanWolf


    I agree with all of this, save maybe the "lies" part.

    It is a very.. PR.. lawyery sort of answer, but honestly I think it's less devious than the way the LGPL details are being used by the other side.

    The way the LGPL claim works, it is implying that what Mojang has done is take their own, closed-source, code and included it in a propietary Mojang project alongside LGPL'd code- which violates the terms of LGPL.

    Ok, except that's not what's happening here. There is, truthfully, no Mojang code in Bukkit. Not one line of code has been touched by a Mojang employee (since being hired by Mojang), if I am not mistaken. There is certainly no "closed source" Mojang code in Craftbukkit. It's not built against their binaries, or directly against their code.

    The NMS code in CraftBukkit is not Mojang's code. It is decompiled, deobfuscated, machine-curated, hand-edited code that is derived from Mojang's compiled obfuscated bytecode. Mojang themselves did not put it there, and does not maintain it. Its inclusion in the CraftBukkit code predates any involvement by Mojang, and that it was allowed to remain there is a long-standing indication that Mojang does not consider it "their code". Otherwise they would have issued a DMCA a long time ago.

    The fact that Mojang now "owns" that code does make this a sticky point- but still, not really. The code in question that they own and distribute with Craftbukkit is still not closed-source internal code - it is open source code provided by the Bukkit team, and always has been.

    The way the LGPL is being used right now is so frustrating that we would expect it to be something thought up by a devious lawyer of a multi-million dollar company. But, no, on the contrary- the suits are the ones refuting this claim and, I believe, trying to defend the general nature and spirit of Bukkit as an open, community-driven project.

    I can try and understand the frustration of contributing a huge amount of your time and effort into a project that wasn't completely what it appeared to be, and I do sympathize with Wolvereness and the rest of the team. But I don't think what he's done is fair to us, the community for which this project was originally made.

    For instance, if I had known and fully understood that all of my plugin development could be made immediately irrelevant on the whim of any one of hundreds of people, just because they contributed a line of code to CraftBukkit and no longer felt like sharing it, I might have thought twice about this whole thing.

    I will definitely pay more attention to the specifics of all the flavors of "open source" licensing in the future. Always good to learn something new! So at least, there's that.
     
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  29. Offline

    WyrdWyrd

    Re one person taking down the whole project:

    Good point. However, I think that's more to do with the ludicrously overpowered nature of DMCA takedown requests rather than a flaw or bug in a particular Open Source license.
     
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