dl.bukkit.org - 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons?

Discussion in 'Bukkit Discussion' started by extended_clip, Sep 3, 2014.

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  1. Offline

    bastion

    Really the only thing dinnerbone could do at this point would be to start writing code based on the commits. IE; start with the last build no other contributors were not ok with bukkit. In other words, bukkit would have to poll all the contributors for a CLA/copyright waiver and see where that ends up. If WW or any other author decides not to allow his code to be used then DB could start rebuilding bukkit from the last commit before that authors first commit.
     
  2. Could be that's the only "practical" approach in (lol) theory. So maybe the plugin API will be in MC 1.8.1 :):). I would call it 1.9 or 2.0 though, to leave behind that beta versioning. Or the thing gets trampled by lawyers who revive the LGPL on CB, they release the obfuscated server code under some open source license and refactor the hell out of the next server version with plugin API then :p, or something like that.
     
  3. Offline

    Skye

    I wish I could ignore this, but it really bothers me when people publish their views under such a disclaimer. Opinions and interpretations founded on misinformation certainly makes them less valid.
     
  4. Offline

    Shaggy67

    This is my take on the situation as well. Wolvereness is attempting to claim in the DMCA takedown request that the inclusion of minecraft proprietary server code with the bukkit GPL code violates the GPL license on bukkit. I'm not a lawyer either, but I don't believe that is a valid claim. As you say, just because you include closed source content with a GPL project does not violate the GPL license of bukkit. This situation is nothing new, it has been covered within the GPL community many times.

    I will say that Wolvereness gets points for uniqueness. I don't think I've ever seen someone try to issue a DMCA complaint against their own project before.
     
  5. Offline

    Leviathanss

    I think that wolvereness is a douche.
    He wrote some coding.. Big deal it's not like he invented the coding or the game etc.
    He used stuff that belonged to another. The guy should get a life and move on instead of punishing thousands of people for no reason.
    He is now costing a lot of people a lot of trouble and money just because he is so stuck up.
     
  6. Offline

    Shaggy67

    Has Mojang said that they are going to change the bukkit license to a closed source model? That wasn't my understanding.
     
  7. Offline

    uvbeenzaned

    And... Who cares what they do with it. All of the free code went to a great cause! Everyone is so greedy in the way that they act.
     
  8. I think the trick is the Bukkit-Bleeding repository he contributed from being licensed as GPL, or say some of the contributed code. With that CraftBukkit (the official repository) is built upon a GPL project and must be fully GPL compatible, due to not having a special agreement on lcensing with contributors. Since it contains Minecraft code that is not GPL compatible, CraftBukkit as a whole can't be GPL/LGPL anymore, and the contributor has the copyright of his code violated by CraftBukkit using it, because he (now) disagrees on it. That repository Wolverness uses has a GPL license that was overridden in the original project. If you ask me it's at least a question if you can do a partial commit from a repository with altered/set-back license to a LGPL repository without notifying about the license change of code, could be mined ground. That is my current idea of it, it may be plain wrong :p, and it's getting longer with edits. So i better not post that more, because lawyers should settle that, as unique as it gets.
     
  9. Offline

    Skionz

    And I think your a douche, he has been helping since 2011, lay off.

    Learn to grammer.
     
  10. Offline

    uvbeenzaned

    And you, stop being a troll. You need to lay it off.
     
  11. Offline

    Shaggy67

    My understanding is that is not true.

    The other angle to this that I haven't seen anybody else mention yet is that a DMCA takedown request is not the only step in this process. If a copyright owner thinks their copyright is being violated, they issue a request to the hosting company (which Wolvereness has done) which requires the hosting company to make the content unavailable (which they have done). However, the distributor of the content (now Mojang, since they took over control of the repository) has the option to issue a counter-claim to the hosting company stating that the copyright complaint does not apply (which personally I believe to be true). At that stage the hosting company may make the content available again. After that it would be up to Wolvereness to bring a lawsuit against Mojang.

    My guess is that Mojang currently has their lawyers looking closely at the DMCA takedown request, will likely decide that they are still within their rights to distribute craftbukkit, and request that Multiplay make the links available again. Whether or not Wolvereness takes it to court is anyone's guess. I don't believe he(?) would win though.
     
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  12. Offline

    krisdestruction

    I agree it hasn't changed, however that does not mean that their blog posts do not have legal implications as well. Their blog post are legally arguably post of Mojang's stance of what is permissible under the EULA.
    I'm all for the free market. Don't update Bukkit and let it die, or pull a kill switch. Either way, people will be moving to the ModAPI. However as I said, we'll be playing into Mojang's hands now. Mojang's stance went from fully supporting bukkit 2 years ago, to not making a single contribution in the past 2 years, to fully supporting it again for 1.8, to trying to go against BukkitDevs and change the project away from GPL. Mojang is unpredictable and it's actions are clear indicators of that.
    I would very much hope that would be the case as well. However hope is not a luxury I can have with something as unpredictable as Mojang. If the ModAPI is released, don't you think it would be available to all servers, including Realms? If Mojang were to go as far as to change the donation model of each server, don't you think it's possible they will try to change the hosting prices of each server "to make it so every host is fair". This goes against what you mentioned about a Free Market. They have motivation for a higher profit margin. Yes, these are speculations of implications. Yes, I think Mojang may consider this business model.
    Yes heavy pay2win is bad and unethical. Not every server abuses pay2win to the degree other servers do. In fact, a lot of non-minigame servers don't even have a concept of "win", you build what you want. As you said, it's a free market. If someone is really abusing pay2win, they can join another server. Their customers include server owners, and a large majority of my server also agrees that my "pay2win perks" are reasonable. So no, this doesn't align with most people on my server.
    Except we're talking about 8-16 year olds asking their parents for money here. They're going to pay the premium even if it gets them less. My argument isn't really about price, it's about Mojang's potential for a monopoly here, would again goes against what you mentioned about a Free Market.
    Not sure what you meant :/
    Minecraft is "owned" by Mojang by their EULA. Mods are the ownership of their creators by Mojang's EULA. Bukkit's trademarks are owned by Mojang. Contribution code made to Bukkit are owned by their contributors. There can't be any disagreement there as those are the facts. The only stance I have on the above facts are that I don't think Mojang should have been able to "buy" Bukkit in the first place.
    I'm sure you mean the "Bukkit Community" as that's not the part that Mojang bought :p But yes, I like that part too. However, the 14000+ plugin part of the community depends on CraftBukkit which in turn depends on the Bukkit API.
    I feel that it'd be a decent amount of work for no gain. If you're insistent on keeping up with MC plugin development, you can do more powerful things with the ModAPI than with Bukkit. Additionally it would only introduce bugs into the development process. It's like MCPC without a real need for Forge.
    I think a lot of games nowadays use this model. As for trust, I used to like Mojang but my views on it has been jaded with their recent actions. This is also subjective as well, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions :)
    It has to do with the DMCA request, which was due to Mojang's decisions regarding CraftBukkit. Mojang's special ownership relationship does not bypass copyright law.
    The Mojang press output is debatable since Mojang communicates a lot of their actions and stances through Twitter, IRC channels, or Reddit. Blog posts (if that's what you meant by "Mojang press output" is arguably the least used when communicating to it's customers.
    They have every right to shut down their business if they don't want to continue their development for whatever reason. Why should we have the right to force devs to continue development when they don't want to, especially if they're doing this voluntarily? I expect that the shutdown that EvilSeph was proposing was to stop contributions, not to take CB down. However Mojang's approach is to update it and make everything proprietary, against the license's wishes. I cannot guarantee Curse is better than Mojang, however from past history, I don't see them doing anything to impede development.
    Unfortunately so unless 1 side gives. I think Mojang would give though, it's just too much effort/money to support the Bukkit community. If this is the case, this is another instance when Mojang changes direction instantly to suit their needs.
    Not sure what you mean here but as EvilSeph said, Mojang has provided nearly no support for Bukkit throughout these 2 years.
     
  13. Offline

    Shaggy67

    Where has Mojang said that they are planning on changing the bukkit license?
     
  14. Offline

    JarvisX

    From what I understand legally, depending on what time Wolverness worked for Bukkit in code, and when Mojang bought out Bukkit, is important. If Mojang had purchased Bukkit pre-Wolverness coding, then everything that is created by the coders do not belong to themselves privately (even when claiming GPL). Anything discovered by the coders, belong to Mojang exclusively (unless explicitly stated otherwise in their purchasing contract). Now, if Wolverness was not on official Bukkit payroll, then this might not apply. If I'm right, and Mojang did purchase Bukkit completely, and Wolverness is on payroll, or of official staffing capacity at some point, then all the coding from Bukkit belongs to Mojang/Bukkit. Thus this entire thing is a facade, and has no legal standing.

    Since Mojang never authorized a release of it's original code, and having owned Bukkit for over 2 years. Mojang, has not stopped it's subsidiary from continuing it's daily operations. If you read from the recent press release from Mojang, that they support EvilSeph and the Bukkit Platform, they even pulled out a receipt stating that they owned Bukkit. Gives them (whatever kind of deals, negotiations that were discussed when acquiring Bukkit) access to Mojang's resources, perhaps even including access rights to the original code. Even if Wolverness is getting at against Bukkit for using his code under GPL, that the matter is that the platforms are STILL using Minecraft, altered as it may be, but nevertheless still using an globally copyrighted software.

     
  15. Fair enough "they" use all those channels, but "they" are speaking there as individuals mostly (e.g. twitter), and Mojang does have one or another website with all the "really official" statements. In my opinion not much can be blamed on them there, based on what i read so far.

    1. Another case of "they": I am not sure if EvilSeph and Wolverness are/were the current and only deciding project lead. As EvilSeph used to state all decisions are debated amongst Bukkit ... idk ... staff / team, just it seems this one slipped through somehow.
    2. They don't need to continue ("they again"). Whatever is the case legally, those "they" could step down and help new people in, to give just one example of an alternative behavior. Because with "ending Bukkit" they impose their view on many other contributors and effectively undo lots of work of others who contributed for the future of or at least the presence of Bukkit, and yes this is about plugin development as well, there is not just one or another server mod.
    3. Mojang will make CB proprietary... that's may be an assumption, what are the facts? And would it really matter (controversial, i know, but has to be asked aswell)?
    4. Did Mojang do anyting to impede development? I don't even know if "Mojang" would update or "them" (Dinnerbone!? Grum!?).

    So they provided support? Did the Bukkit lead team (whichever "they", say those who just wanted to turn the project off !?) ever seriously try to get in touch with Mojang in a reasonable way? I have not seen Bukkit project winning any communications world cups in the meantime either, apart from some gradual / local improvements.


    Of course some points are valid questions, but all in all i feel there is a lot of fear/uncertainty about what Mojang can/would/might do, i just can't buy that, neither am i sure what will happen.
     
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  16. Offline

    TheDeamon

    AFAIK, Mojang has said nothing (publicly) about CB becoming proprietary, or about code being obfuscated that wasn't before. What Mojang probably has done is basically made the update process for 1.8 non-open-source in the respect that the usual suspects have been cut out of the loop in regards to alpha and pre-beta testing of builds is concerned. As Dinnerbone may be doing that in-house Mojang, but that doesn't say much one way or the other as to the availability of source code once they do release a beta.

    Regardless of that detail, Spigot was also taken down, and it had no dog in the hunt, as it were, in the Bukkit/Craftbukkit "ownership/control dispute." As Spigot is completely independent of Mojang.

    The timing of the takedown seems to be an effort to cause maximum grief, hitting less than 24 hours after the release of a major update to MineCraft itself. Rather then almost immediately after Mojang took over the repository.

    It seems to me that Wolverness is doing everything in his power to accomplish what EvilSeph attempted to do, and that is kill the CraftBukkit project. Only he's taking it to another level, he seems to want it dead, and wants to take any and all "forks" (like Spiggot) down with it as well.

    Yeah yeah, he has some people saying he's fighting Mojang over the EULA for MineCraft. Hence the apparent demand that they release the minecraft server code to the public domain under GPL to end his complaint. Only thing is, if he was looking at that rationally, that demand has about a snowballs chance in the Nether of actually going anywhere, Mojang would be more likely to write-off CraftBukkit than do that.

    There is a chance that DinnerBone *could* roll back the clock in terns of what CraftBukkit release he starts coding from in order to update it to 1.8. But that basically sets back plugin developers, and him, back about 2.5 years in terms of API extensions/changes that have happened to CraftBukkit in the interim. Which will create headaches for everyone involved, particularly as they have to be wary of Wolverness trying to claim "derivative works" on whatever alternative code gets implemented, as it is possible for programmers to lay down virtually identical code to accomplish a particular task, even without seeing the work down by the other person.

    Particularly if they're trying to (re)build code to be compliant to an already established API. (In this case the nascent Minecraft API itself, such as it is, and the API for CraftBukkit as it stood in 1.7.10 to try to avoid breaking plugins needlessly) Which in turn takes us back to: Mojang may just decide to walk away from CraftBukkit and let Wolverness take the heat for (successfully) killing it. But first, I'm sure they(Mojang) have lawyers going over things with a fine tooth comb.
     
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  17. Offline

    krisdestruction

    My apologies, I read this section wrong. The fact is however, they are not authorizing their software to be included with the GPL license, otherwise the DMCA would have been nullified.
    I see your perspective and you're right in that sense. If you take that stance, then I would say that these issues boil down to non-existent communication from Mojang, which then I have to say is fully Mojang's fault. I'll specify names moving forward instead of "they" (so much typing D: ).
    I believe this was discussed with the Bukkit staff team but I assume not Mojang. This is a pretty big decision and I doubt EvilSeph made this decision alone, I cannot confirm. TnT also stepped down following EvilSeph. I haven't had the time to research so correct me if I'm wrong: Wolverines was a heavy developer but not a lead.
    I don't think Bukkit volunteers can with the fact that Mojang "owns" Bukkit. Thus it is logically up to Mojang to assign the lead, which I assume was Dinnerbone when he made his tweet. This may change with the DMCA request.
    Yes, stating that they don't give permission for use with the GPL license. Other than that, their EULA is a kill trigger if there's something Mojang doesn't approve of.
    I agree, there's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of what I say is only what could happen, but I believe Mojang should have handled this situation better on their end.
    Wow I didn't see it in this perspective. His DMCA request was "super effective" and a critical hit :eek:
    Possibly, I think what Wolverness did shows why Mojang cannot be trusted. They're showing their true light by pulling permission for MC when confronted by the GPL license.
    I think if Mojang pulled support for CraftBukkit, blame could fall either way.
     
  18. Offline

    TheDeamon

    Back up, look at it again.



    Mojang has not authorized making any of its proprietary code open source//available through any kind of LGPL/GPL licencse. IE. Their proprietary code remains closed source, and subject to their EULA. As Mojang happens to also "own" bukkit/CraftBukkit, they allow for their proprietary code/software to be distributed as part of a software package, but only so long as the licensing for their part of that software package remains unchanged.

    The cause for the takedown is that wolverness then asserted:



    IE. Mojang has to make their "proprietary code/software" compliant with the GNU GPL version 3.0 or later, and must make it open source.

    Which is also where things get interesting, because it wasn't a third party who introduced Wolverness's code into CraftBukit, it was Wolverness who did so. Making it even more complicated, Craftbukkit has never been compliant with his (current) interpretation of the GNU 3.0 license. So he has essentially invoked the DMCA against his own previous actions.... Which would tend to make me think that should he try to take this to court, it's going to get bounced right back out the door so fast his(Wolverness) head will spin, as HE is the one who knowingly caused the violation in the first place, which arguably means he waived the GPL license the moment he committed that code to the CraftBukkit repo.

    The problem in the interim being that what people think should happen(even the lawyers themselves) in the legal system of any particular country, and what actually does happen can be entirely different things. And the speed at which these kinds of disputes get resolved tend to be glacial at best, so it would likely be years before a final resolution would be reached if Mojang and Wolverness both stick to their legalistic guns.

    The posts that came from (former) staff members following that announcement said it was a group decision.
     
  19. Offline

    krisdestruction

    True and I believe this complicates things for Mojang if they are to pursue legal action because the entire situation involves international parties.
     
  20. Offline

    Alshain01

    Not necessarily. If Mojang felt this dispute was harming their business enough, they could file a legal precedent called an injunction which would allow them to continue Bukkit distribution pending trial. Injunctions usually happen quickly.
     
  21. Does this mean that plugins using CB as a dependency can also be DMCA'd?
     
  22. Plugins building on the Bukkit API should be fine. Plugins building against CraftBukkit might be affected - i'm no lawyer.

    But "fine" ... is relative if you don't have a legal implementation of the Bukkit-API :p.
     
  23. Wow, so really the whole thing is now a big waiting game.
    All those little kids running around ignorant to the fact that their favourite servers could be asked to close at any second. :(
     
  24. It could be ignored in some countries i guess, but some hosters might get into legal trouble if they run or allow to run illegal software - yet this thing is not thorough, lawyers are all over the place i bet!
     
  25. I would imagine that the DMCA could be called up for any server running the offending software. Although you do bring up a good point, hosting companies are probably bricking it right now too and that could result in the mass closure of servers.
     
  26. Offline

    Syd

    There is absolutly no hint, that Mojang tries to change the licence away from GPL.
    That wouldn't be even possible, as you had to ask all those contributors.

    About the other stuff, I simply don't know enough about the internal process of Mojang.

    Ofc the Plugin API will be available to Realms as well, however I see no economical gain for Mojang to get into the bigger server market.
    I mean, we're not talking about EA, Ubisoft or Activision/Blizzard, we're talking about Mojang.
    The people at Mojang are gamers, not capitalists.

    Also, they did not change the donation model, they changed the sales model. A donation is a giving someone money without getting something in return. If you get VIP it's a sale.
    And Mojang had good reasons to regulate this market, because often enough the free market has proved that it does not work for the good of the customers.

    For Mojang regulating the Server Hosting market I have no fear. The EULA clearification did allow server hosting for profit. Also, if Mojang were able to do things like removing the dedicated server, they would start with things like removing the offline-mode.
    As long as Mojang keeps the offline-mode, I don't see them trying to regulate the server market.

    I don't think, that the free market is the superior economy model. But I know it's basic mechanics.
    And the mechanics are not made, to act for the good of the customer.
    If the Free Market would work at games, we wouldn't be flooded with P2W crap right now.

    To make it easy: people can't/wont simply "join another server" in most cases.

    You questioned if Dinnerbone and _grum should be still considered as contributors.
    I gave you the reasons, because I say "yes". ;)

    On the legal standpoint you're 100% right, all these things are "owned" by anybody.
    From my idealist point of view however, I'd disagree with this fact.

    Ofc it's more efficient to switch to the Plugin API once it's out. However, an Plugin for the API, that adds compatibility to Bukkit would allow people to use old Bukkit plugins, that won't get updated so fast.
    It's would've been something for the switch time between Bukkit and the Plugin API.


    I havn't read the other posts in this topic. It's just too time consuming to follow this thread...
     
  27. Offline

    TheDeamon

    Only if they also happen to contain code written by Wolverness, but the whole purpose of the CraftBukkit API is that people writing plugins would only need to hook to the API, rather than copy/paste code into their own plugin. So the vast majority of plugins are safe in that regard.

    The Plugins still have a problem in that virtually all of the (3rd party) Server API's which can implement that Bukkit API do happen to be subject to DMCA take downs because they are likely to contain both code from Wolverness, and also have the same implementation issue regarding the presence of files that belong to Mojang which are not licensed under GPL.

    So basically, if Bukkit and other child/forked projects remain subject to challenge from Wolverness, the Bukkit plugins essentially have reached End of Life because there are no (new) servers (coming online) where those API hooks can be legally used (as distribution of the relevant files for the server side is subject to DMCA). The only option that plugin devs will have is to recode and port their project to a different project within the Minecraft community that is outside of the reach of Wolverness, or any other Bukkit dev that wants to invoke the DMCA on their own work to harass Mojang.


    ...but then they also become liable for any "damages" that occur in the interim, should the courts decide in favor of Wolverness. Which I don't think will happen, but more surprising things can occur.

    As what we have here is the DMCA equivalent of someone coming into your house, downloading a bunch of kiddie porn onto your computer, leaving and immediately calling the police to report you for having kiddie porn on your computer.

    Only Mojang has a much better "paper trail" available to prove who it was that introduced the offending material into the bukkit repository.

    EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 10, 2016
  28. Server owners and hosting companies might not be bound to that law in all countries. I assume that there exist similar mechanisms in other countries, even if not bound by USA-law, but i wouldn't be sure that those mechanisms get triggered there same way. At least you can say that they are ok, as long as no such mechanisms have been triggered in their country. Not sure about USA citizens having servers at abroad hosters and then again, what with players from USA playing on abroad servers?

    Time to check out asteroids again.
     
  29. Offline

    TheDeamon

    As others have posted(and part of why I went back to edit that quoted post, evidently after you quoted it), the servers already in operation are in something of a grey area, even under US Law, as it seems that it is more about how the code is distributed than it is about how it is being used as a final product.

    At least until Wolverness starts issuing DMCA take down notices against individual servers, I'm going to presume that continued use for those who already implemented is fine for the time being. It is new servers/new installs that start to run into trouble, as "distribution" will need to occur in order for that server to run one of Bukkit's many different iterations. Which still leaves the plug-in developers with a userbase that cannot legally grow in numbers until this is resolved. And as it is with most things, if it isn't growing, it's probably dieing. It is just a questions of how long it takes for that death to come.

    -----

    And circling back to one of my earlier posts, Mojang does have something of a third option as I think about it.

    Roll Bukkit back to before Wolverness started submitting code, update that code-base to 1.8, and then begin implementation of an official server-side API for everything else that had to be cut out of CB(rather than making Dinnerbone and others @Mojand code it once for CB and make that code GPL/open source, and then recode it again in yet another (3rd way) for implementation in MC, to avoid any legal issues that may crop up) . Which would essentially mean he(Wolverness) successfully hijacked Mojang's development plans for MC in the near term, and that the coming minecraft snapshots for the next patch will become all about server-side API.
     
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