Bukkit: It's time to say ...

Discussion in 'Community News and Announcements' started by EvilSeph, Aug 21, 2014.

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  1. Offline

    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

    RoKGeppie

    lel, they dont own it, evilseph did the work, its his creation, not dinnerbone's.
     
  3. Offline

    ABDTGaming

  4. Offline

    W&L-Craft

    Sad to see this happen :'( i have been Here for 3 years and i would like to thank you for everything :(
     
  5. Offline

    desht

    You don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about, pretty much in common with every "OMG minecraft is dead goodbye Bukkit boo hoo hoo Mojang sux kthxbye" drama queen who's posted on this thread.

    Seriously: read the OP, read the tweets, do a little bloody research. Bukkit isn't going away. The only mystery here is EvilSeph's motives for that rather bizarre announcement which has caused so much overreaction.

    I guess if any good has come from this, at least it's revealed who the idiots are on this forum.
     
    markdf, Skyost, Seadragon91 and 7 others like this.
  6. Offline

    Skye

    I posted this in response to a user on another forum, but I think I should post it here as well:
    EvilSeph Thank you for all the work you've done for Bukkit, and for sticking with the project through it all. You definitely don't deserve to be villainized, especially not by all these low activity users whose majority of posts are in this thread. :'(

    One thing that was also brought up was CraftBukkit's licensing. Since Bukkit is owned by Mojang, and Bukkit is licensed under GPL/LGPL, logically other projects that build off Bukkit should no longer be standing in a legal gray area.
     
  7. ima say bye to u EvilSeph o/ :'(
     
  8. Offline

    bastion


    Well if evilseph was under an NDA and the rest of the bukkit staff voted to shut bukkit down, the logical choice, one would think, would be to send an email or notification to mojang and let dinnerbone and jeb know that the staff and yourself have decided to no longer work on bukkit, and in that email you might say something like, since I am under an NDA and cannot tell anyone you aquired us what would you like us/me to do. By sending said email you would give mojang the opportunity to figure out, in private, how to handle the situation for the most professional transition possible.

    I would like to point out a passage from dinnerbones blog from jan 6, 2013.

    Some months pass by, and we're now into 2012. Mojang had expressed a desire to acquire us, and so we flew to meet up with them yet again. Needless to say, after much talks to and fro, we accepted their offer and the rest is history! I passed on the keys to some other members, taught them how to do the updating, and went on to developing Minecraft.

    It would appear however since dinnerbone expressly states in the first sentence that mojang wanted to aquire bukkit, I do not think evilseph was under an NDA. But he could have been, could still be.

    This entire thing has disrupted the community when all that was required was an email to mojang, not this public airing of what ever this has been.

    Just to finish this off, I would like to thank all of the devs who have worked on bukkit and would encourage them all to continue working on this project. TNT and evilseph have both left and I can honestly say, bukkit will not be the same with out them.
     
    Hobby_boy, Enzer and riebie like this.
  9. Offline

    Skye

    bastion Perhaps his intent was to force Mojang's hand in revealing their possession of Bukkit, something which never should have been hidden from contributors for years. People have a right to know who they're working for and to what end. This information needed to go public one way or another.
     
  10. Offline

    Rydian

    What I linked was news on the second-hand purchase (and staff move) that the user I quoted thought was kept hidden. Some of them mention Curse, though not specifically as the one that owned the rights between the two.

    I'm having difficulties pulling up any news articles directly about the original transfer... because the keywords "curse" and "bukkit" together return pages on pages of curse-hosted bukkit plugins instead.
    (Not surprising, given Curse's SEO work that they like their projects to benefit from.)
    Also the news is a couple of years old and I'm too lazy to dig back that far.

    That said, some news about Curse integration was posted on these forums a few times ~2 years ago.
    https://forums.bukkit.org/threads/on-bukkit-and-curse.89708/
     
  11. Offline

    bastion

    Ok, but your other post asked, what other choice did he have? He had a number of other choices, he chose this one. I would also like to point out, again, the acquisition of bukkit was not a secret. The proof of that is in dinnerbones 2013 blog as well as numerous other hints and announcements at the time it occurred.

    So, now everyone knows what was public information 2 years ago, there has been a major drama train running through the forums here as well as elsewhere, with mojang being vilified for stepping in and making sure everyone knew that bukkit was not going anywhere when they were left no other options but to make public statements that could just as easily been done in private.

    Love to all and good night.
     
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  12. Offline

    Enzer

    Dinnerbone is the original creator of Bukkit, according to GPL/LGPL, as far as I am aware, the creator of the project is the only one who could legally transfer ownership of the project regardless of contributors.

    According to Ryan Holtz, an employe of Mojang, "Mojang "took over" two and a half years ago when EvilSeph, Dinnerbone, Grum and Tahg were hired, in the form of buying Bukkit (the name and the code) from Curse for a token amount. People seem to be forgetting that Mojang left Bukkit well alone to do its own thing until Warren attempting to discontinue it and pin the blame on us forced our hand."

    Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2e5u6a/bukkit_says_goodbye_to_modding/cjwkgwv

    This information coincides with a blog that Dinnerbone wrote a year ago:

    "At some point here, Curse had offered to support Bukkit and that couldn't have come at a better time. Our servers were buckling under load, and we couldn't afford to do anything about it on our own. I acquired a job at Curse (in which my role was literally, "keep doing what you do and don't mind us". They were good people!) and they also helped kick off an old dream that we had when we started Bukkit; an easy to search plugin repository! They also offered to fly us all to Blizzcon, of which I was planning to attend anyway, so that we can all meet up and say hi. And so for the first time ever, the Bukkit team was united together in person! A month or two after that, Curse also flew us out to the first Minecon and we did a panel there. That was both incredibly scary but also incredibly awesome."

    Source: http://dinnerbone.com/blog/2013/01/06/story-bone-and-bukkit/

    So Curse bought Bukkit's name and code from Dinnerbone and hired Dinnerbone to continue to oversee the project. When Mojang decided to acquire the four founders of Bukkit, Dinnerbone retired from his job at Curse and Mojang bought the name and code from Curse.

    So effectively the licenses was legally followed, with ownership transferring as Dinnerbone->Curse->Mojang.

    Furthermore Mojang, via Jeb, says they have receipt of this purchase and as EvilSeph was never owner of the project, and Dinnerbone does not refute Mojang's claim (and only Dinnerbone, as creator of the project and thus original owner of the project), then what Mojang claims must be true.

    Who knows why it wasn't talked about openly at the time, but as far as I'm concerned it really doesn't matter and I would hazard a guess it was Dinnerbone or the like who requested that Mojang buys Bukkit as it would solve the EULA issues they were having right before the Bukkit team got hired.

    Seeing that Mojang had no interest in letting their ownership be known and wanted Bukkit to continue seemingly as a community project and that Dinnerbone is now heading things again and that the recent EULA hub-bub doesn't really effect Spigot, yeah I'd assume Spigot will continue.

    Bukkit's ownership was transferred to Mojang, but Bukkit still falls under the license it was made under unless the next version legally updates to a new license (can't change the license for older version, but you can for newer versions). So even in a hypothetical world where Mojang goes crazy and updates to a stricter license, as long as Spigot is only based on the version of Bukkit before a license update, they would be legally clear.

    Honestly, you could probably technically argue that since Mojang is owner of the project with the current license and the current license allows forks, then Bukkit's special protection from the EULA (as it is an asset of Mojang) also applies to the various forks. This is something that would need to be further looked into, but Mojang would earn a lot of brownie points if they decided this. :p
     
    Hobby_boy, AegisZephyr and LCastr0 like this.
  13. Offline

    Skye

    People are still arguing over whether or not the acquisition was made publicly known?

    I believe TnT's farewell post makes it quite clear that it wasn't. You guys keep digging and posting the same old links that make no mention of Bukkit being bought, but that the team members were. In fact, some of the oldest blog entries from Dinnerbone made it apparent that they were leaving the Bukkit project behind to work on Minecraft.

    Believe me, when the news about Mojang hiring Bukkit devs came out, I was hoping that it meant Mojang bought Bukkit, because it would have been a win for everyone at the time. But it has been stressed over the years that this was not the case, when in fact it was!
     
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  14. Offline

    Enzer

    For whatever their reason Mojang decided it was best to not announce that they acquired Bukkit from Curse. Nobody knows this reason besides Mojang and I would hazard Dinnerbone, Grum, Tahg and EvilSeph as well. They probably had their reasons, but I am not going to second guess it because it hardly matters since Mojang didn't touch Bukkit's license.

    Its the same issue when Curse bought Bukkit originally from Dinnerbone. I don't remember reading a post where Dinnerbone announced he now worked for Curse and Curse had acquired Bukkit until after he quit working for Curse.

    I mean, yeah, there probably should have been an announcement, but what difference would it have made in the long run outside people making conspiracy theories about what Mojang would do to Bukkit. :p

    Besides the point, Mojang has the proper paper work to prove that they purchased Bukkit from Curse, you could try to petition Mojang to release this information I guess. As Dinnerbone was the creator of the project, it was his right by the license to be able to sell the project to Curse and it was then Curse's right by owner of the project and thus the license to sell it to Mojang. Dinnerbone does not refute this and EvilSeph confirms that Mojang is the actual owner of the project. *shrug*

    Misread your post, so the above is effectively not important to the discussion at hand, leaving it though for transparency's sake.
     
  15. Please excuse the writing inside the quotation but I'm on my phone and it's a right pain.
     
  16. Offline

    Sage905

    One of the things that seems to be confusing to many here is the difference between copyright (ownership) and license (permission).

    Reference: http://www.majordojo.com/2010/07/license-vs-copyright.php

    Without the proper legal processes, it is, as far as I can tell, impossible for Mojang to "own" the entirety of Bukkit. They might have rights to the name, and they may have purchased other assets, but they do not own the complete Bukkit code, especially every PR committed by someone who has not explicitly transferred their copyright to Mojang. I maintain that the community owns Bukkit in its current form as much as Mojang does.

    What I've read from EvilSeph and TnT indicates to me that there was no support from Mojang over the past couple of years in maintaining the Bukkit project, regardless of Mojangs claims of ownership. Further, while the announcement to end Bukkit maintenance came from EvilSeph, it was not an individual decision (reference TnT's post).

    So, again, while I am appreciative of Mojangs current commitment to continuing Bukkit, I am also disappointed that they let the Bukkit team struggle alone for so long, and then publicly insult them by saying it wasn't theirs to shut down.

    I feel a great deal of loyalty to the Bukkit team, for their selflessness over the years. I don't feel nearly as much for Mojang, who have a monetary benefit from their efforts, and who arguably monetarily benefited from those that they provided little help to since the "acquisition of bukkit".

    -Sage
     
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  17. Offline

    JDJ

    Mojang will suffer. This cannot be discontinued.
     
  18. Offline

    Dez11

    When I discovered Bukkit to create my own Minecraft server with a huge community and support, my life changed forever. I've been here since 2012 and it has become a part of my life. This event is very saddening for me. Bukkit will be missed! EvilSeph, TnT and all the Bukkit staff, I thank you for you've changed my very life! I will repay you one day if I can :D
     
    BlueMustache likes this.
  19. Offline

    BlueMustache

    I cannot simply say how sad I am right now.
    Words cannot describe it.
    This project has meant alot to me, and I hate to see it go. (If it is.)
    I say kudos to the team, and thanks for being here so long.
    How long do we have till the site is shutdown?
    Because, I think we all should archive every build for Bukkit.
    Anyone agree?

    -Blue

    Dez11
    Same here.

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

    TeamGen0ez

    What's going to happen to the site? Is there going to be an archive for the plugins?

    I'm sad too, on spigot I saw this huge message, as soon as I saw "bukkit is closing down", my heart sank.

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

    Enzer

    According to Grum the Bukkit team only had to ask if they needed help, like being given mappings. This is from a twitter chain of people talking about Mojang not helping Bukkit.

    "We never needed mappings when we updated it for years. They only had to ask as well."
    https://twitter.com/_grum/status/502698140479524864

    Mostly it seems an issue of miscommunication. The devs at Mojang assumed that the devs at Bukkit were fine, people such as TnT were not aware that Mojang was in a position to help, but admits that no one ever tried to contact them. EvilSeph, having been hired under the same contract as Dinnerbone and Grum and who had access to the same business dealings to know that Mojang acquired Bukkit and EvilSeph even reaffirms that, yes, Mojang acquired Bukkit as per part of the terms of their [EvilSeph, Tahg, Dinnerbone and Grum] hiring contract with Mojang. So either EvilSeph completely forgot and has never spoken to Grum or Dinnerbone over the past year (as EvilSeph only quite from Mojang in October of 2013), or he decided that Bukkit didn't require help from Mojang.

    Honestly without any further information, you can't really shame Mojang for not taking an active role. This also isn't even an issue of "Bukkit is struggling, that is why it is shutting down", TnT is leaving for family reasons and EvilSeph doesn't want to continue development himself.

    As for ownership, under LGPL and GPL, the copyright owner (which is originally the one who starts the project, in this case Dinnerbone), gives permission to redistribute the code and use it as you wish. The liscense does not reference contributors, only the owner of the copyright and the users of the code. While in theory individual contributors own their contributions, you also have to take into the account that they committed to a common repository, which belongs to the project's owner. In essence, ownership of your code becomes in question when you willingly merge it with someone's existing code base. The only way to confirm that your code remains your own is to upload your contribution under your own repository with its own LGPL, the owner of the code you would like to contribute to then includes it in his project with proper contribution to you and it is then recognized as a separate entity. This is how LGPL works.

    LGPL nowhere states that everyone who submitted individual work to a centralized repository retains ownership of the code. If you want to submit code to a project you must agree to the projects terms.

    It is for this reason that under GPL and LGPL the owner of the project is able to transfer ownership and copyright of the project to another entity. In this case it was Dinnerbone transferred ownership of the both the Project and Name to Curse and became an employe of Curse to continue overseeing and working on Bukkit. Later on Mojang contact the four main devs of Bukkit and hired them, in this work contract, Dinnerbone retired from Curse and Mojang made a business contract to have the ownership of both the Project and Name transferred from Curse to Mojang.

    Knowing all this we can say the following.

    -Mojang has ownership Project known as Bukkit via legal means as indicated through GPL and LGPL.

    -As such Mojang can decide to have the license for Bukkit changed in any future version. I highly doubt this will happen because GPL and LGPL will allow others to just fork the last version of the project that was under the old licsense, as is anyone's right.

    -Mojang has ownership of the name Bukkit.

    -Mojang has ownership of the Bukkit repository and full control has already been handed over to Grum.

    -Technically, because of the above stated reasons, Mojang has ownership of the code that was directly and freely contributed to the Bukkit Project through Bukkit's repository. This really isn't an issue unless Mojang intends to slap on a more restricting license on a future version and there should be no reason for people to be upset unless they just hate Mojang, but regardless before Mojang it was Curse who owned the repository and before Curse it was Dinnerbone. The point being that there has always been someone with full ownership.

    -As the Bukkit Project is a property of Mojang, it is not considered third party to the company and thus things such as the EULA does not apply to Bukkit. The real kick here, and this is good for the community at large, is that technically because of Bukkit's license, there is a loophole that any project forked from Bukkit would retain these protections. This is up in the air, but could indicate why Mojang has never bothered with groups such as Spigot.

    So where does this put us? Well it pretty much just puts at back to where we were before EvilSeph decided to step down except we now know a few things. The only difference, again, is that EvilSeph is leaving and TnT is leaving, but he has stated that it has been a decision that was formed some time back regardless. We have the original creator of Bukkit stepping up to do the 1.8 version, which means that the 1.8 Bukkit version may be one of the best versions of Bukkit we have seen in a while as Dinnerbone is familiar with both Bukkit and Minecraft, being a developer for both.


    --------------------

    Mojang did nothing, Bukkit is owned by Mojang and thus the EULA does not apply to Bukkit because it is a property of Mojang. Read below on how Mojang is stepping in to keep Bukkit alive.

    Read a bit of the thread. :)

    It turns out that Mojang has owned Bukkit for two and a half years, they bought it from Curse who bought it from Dinnerbone, the creator and original owner of Bukkit.

    Mojang came out and said that EvilSeph does not have permission to close down Bukkit.

    The Minecraft devs stated that Bukkit will not shut down.

    Dinnerbone has announced that he will be stepping up as a Bukkit Dev to make sure Bukkit is updated to 1.8.

    Bukkit isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Mojang has no interest in letting Bukkit die, they will probably support Bukkit themselves either until their Plugin API is finished (as there is a very good chance it will make systems like Bukkit redundant) or until someone in the community steps up and offers to take over.
     
  22. Offline

    Druxe0

    I was never a programmer, but I was planning to learn in 1.8. I never knew this would happen. I will miss bukkit. Bukkit is what made all of my servers work. Without it, so many servers will crumble and the remains will fall into an empty void of nothingness... Until it hit's Jeb's office with thousands of complaints.
     
  23. Offline

    rymate1234

    except bukkit isn't going anywhere yet.
     
  24. Offline

    Sage905

    I wasn't intending on "shaming" Mojang. Open Source and community contributed projects are tough to manage at the best of times. Clearly, however, there was a feeling by at least one of the Core Bukkit team that they were unaware of Mojang's "Interests" in Bukkit. I can relate to the frustration of finding out one day that you were "working" for someone else without pay or support.

    Can you cite sources that back up this position? Or is this just your interpretation of things? My understanding is somewhat different. Again, here you are confusing Copyright and Licensing in your statements, and you are making a number of assertions that I would like to see legal backing on.

    LGPL says nothing about "ownership" at all. It only talks about what license you grant other people to do with your works. Also, where are the "project terms" that you speak about, that the Bukkit contributers have agreed to, either implicitly or explicitly? Admittedly, since I haven't contributed code to Bukkit, this may be a bit of a n00b question.

    Again, I maintain that you are confusing Licensing (GPL and LGPL) with Copyright. GPL and it's variants never transfer ownership of the content away from the creator.

    The validity of the rest of your conclusions are pending on the above clarifications. :)

    -Sage
     
  25. Offline

    sablednah

    Bukkit it not ending - read the whole thread esp page 6ish onwards.

    It's getting a bit repetitive having to say this to each new visitor the the thread -> lukegb any chance you could add a bit more to the "more to come" notice in the OP to explain Bukkit is not ending? Even just one line would help!
     
  26. Offline

    Pantheon

    So long and thanks for all the fish.
     
  27. Offline

    desht

    Nope. Because Bukkit isn't going away. Seriously, read a bit more than the original (now crossed out and spoilered) post, before jumping to your wrong conclusions. It isn't that hard.
     
    AnorZaken likes this.
  28. Offline

    Enzer

    Curse didn't pay people to develop Bukkit when it had ownership of the project, it provided support in different ways (servers, etc). Likeways, Mojang provided support to Bukkit by including it as part of its Brand, thus exempting it from any possible legal issues we can also see Mojang's support via them providing developers when there is a lack of any and according to Grum Mojang would have provided further support to Bukkit had they indicated that they needed help, which they never did. EvilSeph would have been aware of this because it was all part of his hiring contract when he was hired by Mojang.

    You're confusing my intentions. Whoever starts a project is considered owner of that project, this is regardless of LGPL or GPL. When I was referring to LGPL and GPL I was indicating that the license allows transfer of ownership without approval of any additional contributors because the license that Bukkit uses does not require full contributor permission. When you said you questioned the legality of Mojang's ownership of Bukkit, they did so via the rules apply to those particular licenses, which indicates that the only person who can make the decision to transfer ownership is the owner of the project. I mention this because some licenses do not allow for a singular entity to make those kind of decisions and require permission from all contributors to pass ownership, LGPL and GPL do not require this, thus it was in Dinnerbone's then Curse's right to transfer ownership of the Project and Repo.


    I am unsure about what Bukkit does, but this is common knowledge with most open source projects. I am merely stating that Bukkit may have a clause for such a thing and that in the future it has the right to add such terms.

    Of course it does not transfer ownership, maybe I worded wrong. Regardless of GPL or LGPL, when you contribute to a repository you do not own, certain issues do arise about who exactly owns the contributed code. Say for example that on the next revision of Bukkit, Mojang changes the license and they decide to sell Bukkit usage. As owner or the repository and because the current license does not protect contributed code, they would be in their legal rights, regardless of what contributors would argue. This is why I pointed out that in larger projects the proper way to do things is to upload your contributions to a project that you own that is protected under GPL/LGPL and then have Bukkit integrate that project into theirs by following the GPL guidelines and fully attributing the code. There is a reason why that procedure exists and that is because direct contributing is in a legal gray area in regards to ownership and rights. :p

    At this point I want to state that I am not a lawyer nor an expert on software licenses, this is all just from my basic understanding based on what I have read as well as having seen similar issues talked about in the past.

    Regardless of all of this, it doesn't matter unless Mojang intends to change the licsense, which I don't think they will as they understand its place in the community, I mean, you have the original creator of Bukkit basically taking care of it again, I don't see why he would want to draw the ire of the community, Minecraft devs get enough flak for Mojang policies as it is. :p
     
  29. Offline

    Druxe0

    Eventually, I think, Mojang will improve minecraft-server files and get rid of craftbukkit but give minecraft-server files, a configuration for groups/ranks/things that would be in essentials.
     
  30. Offline

    Sage905

    Well, I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I still disagree with this point.

    For example, PwnFilter, the plugin that I currently maintain, was started by FloydATC (whom I never knew), carried on by tremor77, and almost completely rewritten by me. So who owns this? FloydATC? No. tremor? Maybe. Me? maybe?

    The way I look at it is that the "maintainer" of a code base is not necessarily the owner of that codebase. Each piece of code that is commited to that code is owned by the creator of that code. Unless there has been an explicit transfer of rights, the owner of that code can at any time assert, in a court of law, that they created that piece and therefore have ownership over it. If Bukkit has an official document that describes what rights contributers grant to the Bukkit project, and Mojang has legally acquired the Bukkit project "entity", then they would also inherit that ownership. If, on the other hand, there was no formal transfer of ownership/rights, then each individual contributor still "owns" their contributions. Even though Mojang can continue to use them in future versions of Bukkit, due to the GPL, they still do not "own" them, and are bound by the terms of the license by which they were originally released.


    "Common knowledge" is often incorrect. I prefer references to laws and/or accounts of where these things have been put to test. I haven't found any with a quick search, but I have found a lot of documents that discuss the issue, eg: http://haacked.com/archive/2006/01/24/TheDevelopersGuideToCopyrightLaw-Part1.aspx/

    I found no references in the Bukkit contribution guide, nor did I find any copyright statements in the 4 or 5 pieces of Bukkit code I looked at. This implies to me that the entire codebase is owned by its individual contributors, not the project itself. Speculation: Perhaps this is why Bukkit will "NOT BE" the official API.

    I believe this statement to patently false. Only the original owner of the work can change its license. Reference:
    https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2012/ManagingCopyrightInformation.html

    Any references to the LGPL in the discussion of "ownership" are incorrect. Licensing != Ownership.

    It's not much of a legal grey area at all. Unless explicitly agreed to, a contributor does _not_ give up their copyright simply by contributing. Please see my above link to the softwarefreedom.org site.

    I only pick this fight because I find that Mojang's claims of "ownership" are an overreach. I want to see credit given where it's due, especially to the community that has sprung up around Minecraft. It is important, to me, that folks like EvilSeph and TnT, and every Bukkit contributor (including Dinnerbone, and grum) get some recognition and appreciation for their efforts. I think it's awesome that some of the Bukkit developers managed to turn their hobby into food on the table. Let's not forget, though, that there is a huge community of people that contributed to the success of Minecraft, not just the ones that get a paycheck from Mojang.

    -Sage

    -Sage
     
  31. Offline

    YepImRobbie

    Why the hell has it been crossed out Mojang? The fuck is wrong with you I want to read what he has to say.
     
    BossEndorphin likes this.
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