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

    xize

    sigh... if mojang cares so much they should post it, explaining what is going on, my mind almost need a dualcore because one says its forced other side says they got the rights confusing YESS and the speculations won't help.

    it just sounds to strange for me to jump in their twitter and think its alright to believe what is going on, I rather would think something fishys is going on by reading all thus speculations and no sighting of mojang at all than only just sillence.
     
  3. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Enzer So as someone who practically never posted before, before this current episode showed up, you know much better than all the bukkit team members, and everyone else involved, but absolutely you know much better than everyone else, despite the fact your first contribution to the bukkit forums was less than a week ago.
     
  4. Offline

    Enzer

    While I respect your opinion on their standing in the community, I personally really don't value the opinion of someone who bemoans losing his ability to ban so that he can remove someone he is irritated at over made up rules and unproven assumptions. That doesn't speak highly to me. feildmaster has been nothing but aggressive and negative since coming to the thread and though they claim otherwise, what they write is building up as a "Us vs Them, Mojang should go fuck itself" sentimentality, which also does not speak very highly to me.

    This is my first interaction with them and it is not a very good show of character.

    My opinion is based on feildmaster's really shitty analogy and how they are deciding to define things and push shame onto certain groups. Nothing more. That is why I am not wishing to continue discussion with said person.
     
  5. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Enzer "unproven assumptions"
    Same IP, same style of writing, same behaviour.
    You suddenly showed up during this episode, spewing false information out of nowhere. Its obvious you and bastion are the same guy. Not only that, but you take the fact that @fieldmaster called you out on it, and then try to discredit each and every one of his posts? That takes dedication.

    The only one who is being negative and bringing hatred is you, by insulting bukkit team members, and bringing general drama and misinformation. Deal with it: its not going to go "just fine", this isn't "evilseph is tried to shut bukkit down! Mojang saved us all!" Its much more than that and is embedded in the miscommunication between mojang and the modding communities, and nothing is certain yet. So do me a favour and stop with the elitism.
     
    BossEndorphin likes this.
  6. Offline

    feildmaster

    So you're saying that it's not Mojangs fault that they didn't announce they owned Bukkit, when they are the only party that can rightfully announce it? That they didn't state their intentions for bukkit for over 2 years? That they don't actually grant any expressed permissions to Bukkit?
    [​IMG]

    No, this is totally EvilSeph's fault. It wasn't EvilSeph running the project, the whole time it was just he who has been dictating over 40 people in how they work.

    Also, try explaining this: Mojang owns Bukkit. Curse hosts Bukkit. Curse makes ad revenue from Bukkit... what?
     
  7. Offline

    Enzer

    Ahahaha, what? Reread the discussion buddy, fieldmaster was taking to two other people, not myself. :p

    What? How is EvilSeph litterally posting a thread stating that the team was going to shut down bukkit for reasons and then Mojang stepping up stating "No" and then going "We will update it to 1.8" not that. Anything beyond that is conjecture built up by outside parties because that is the extent that Mojang has stated things.

    Also, please post what false information I have spread. Pretty much anything I have stated in regards to Mojang has been sourced from an employee of Mojang and I have documented much of what I have said the first few times before it became repeating the same answers over and over to those who couldn't care to read the thread or linked information in the OP.

    Please post where I have been disrespectful to anyone or does "Having a personal opinion based on someone's words" count as being disrespectful here. Please post what insults I have said. I am very curious.

    Curse bought Bukkit from the original dev team in exchange for helping with hosting. Dinnerbone got a job working for Curse as the person to oversee Bukkit at this time. Curse is allowed to make ad-revenue as Mojang never moved them off of Curse's owned servers. Kind of like how Curse makes money off of the Minecraft Forums as its run on Curse's stuff. Kind of like how YouTube makes ad revenue off of other people's videos. Or how Curse can make ad revenue off of the threads for the mods posed on their forums, that isn't something change or confusing.

    This is explained in pretty good detail here: http://dinnerbone.com/blog/2013/01/06/story-bone-and-bukkit/

    The detail that was missing was that Curse's ownership was then sold to Mojang for a token ammount and this was done as part of the hiring contracts for the Bukkit Devs hired by Mojang. Guess what, most businesses have a nondisclosure clause built into their employment contracts and most inter-business contracts, especially for those not publicly-traded, are typically not talked about openly.

    For what I can remember, I don't remember Curse or any of the old devs talking about them selling Bukkit to Curse at the time, but nobody seems to be bent out of shape about that.

    Grum's also commented on that email, pretty much Marc was correct because of the question asked. Bukkit isn't given any specific permissions. It isn't given any specific permissions because its exempt in the first place. You don't need to give special permissions or licenses for something that you are already exempt from.

    I still don't get why you are so bent out of shape at Mojang for other people's decisions.
     
  8. Enzer Surely if the fact that Bukkit was exempt from needing permission, then that would have been the reply, rather than the "not given" response? To me, and I think most people, that would imply that they haven't been told they can do whatever it is they were asking about (although they haven't necessarily been told they can't do it either). It wouldn't imply that they don't need permission.
     
  9. Offline

    Enzer

    My whole opinion on that email exchange is that it was the result of a game of telephone. Person states question (I have not seen the original question, just the fallout from the answer. Marc, not knowing the answer, asks around (no documentation on how that question was phrased to others, could have been rephrased), then Marc gets an answer from the devs (no documentation what their exact wording was) and then Marc files off his reply. *shrug* I just see it as being up for a ton of interpretations.

    Anyway I'm out for the time being.
     
  10. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Enzer ok then, I misread on the accounts. However, you are still discrediting feildmaster for pointing out multi-accounting, and proceeded to fail to respond to him.

    You seem to be hellbent on blaming EvilSeph on the current troubles, and how mojang is the saviour.

    False information - stating that the decision to close bukkit was evilseph's only. It isn't.
    http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/bukkit-its-time-to-say.305106/page-7#post-2757221

    Claiming that mojang will absolutely continue bukkit. Only dinnerbone and grum stated it. And they said it 'personally'. As in, this isn't involving mojang as a whole.

    Claiming that dinnerbone is the only original developer. He isn't.
    http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/bukkit-its-time-to-say.305106/page-11#post-2758541

    You keep showing that you have no idea what you are talking about, because you just jumped in, requoting unclear twitter messages over and over again.

    I urge you to leave the matter to bukkit team and mojang to sort it out, and to stop trying to find a scape goat, in this case, EvilSeph to put the blame for the fact that bukkit is on a dying state.
     
  11. Offline

    XD 3VIL M0NKEY

    Well...

    Holy crap.

    To all I've met and spoken to on here, farewell. I'm sure we'll meet again.
    TnT - Congratulations buddy, have a wonderful and happy life. I've known you for quite some time and you've expressed your difficulties to me, how busy this made you. How much time out of your day Bukkit took, but you were so dedicated and your passion for the project made it magic for everyone to be a part of. Thank you.
    Everyone else ever.
    Thank you. Your support for the project and the sheer community driven aspects of Bukkit made it a wonderful place to be and I'm happy to hold my glass up high and scream "To the Bukkiteers" as I'm going to miss each and every one of you, regardless as to whether I know you. Thank you once again for the support and backbone that has driven this project so far.

    Have a great life, I wish everyone has their dreams fulfilled and their wishes granted. It's been a fantastic and eventful run and I'm missing it already.

    Kind and warm regards,
    Ryan.
     
  12. Offline

    _LB

    someoneB Looking at the source, only the core engine is C++, the rest (e.g. the vanilla game) is LUA.
     
  13. Offline

    Howesy69

    Thanks for keeping all the minecraft servers amazing <3
     
  14. Offline

    Mixerman123

    Well, thank you everyone!

    I truly think that Bukkit has been a fantastic, if not the best, collaboritive project I have seen for a very, very long time.
    This has been an amazing part of my life, and has virtually encouraged me to try out Java and move out of other languages. Thanks all staff, and good wishes to you :)

    I hope this isn't my last message on this forum, and if so, I hope as this door closes, another one opens.
    Thank you,
    -Mix.
    You guys are bloody awesome.
     
  15. Offline

    minepress

    I've not mislead anyone. I've not provided false information. I provided picture proof of someone elses false statement. Before you make an accusation at least understand what you're saying
     
  16. Offline

    Necrodoom

    minepress have you understood what you were saying? Because he may be here NOW, when this episode started, but not for a long while, which was what obscurehero said.

    Your "proof" is a logical fallacity, being that, since dinnerbone is here now, he must have always been here, which is completely false, and that is why you are misleading.
     
  17. Offline

    xbenas

    EvilSeph The project will never be the same without you. Best of luck in the future! [diamond]
     
  18. Offline

    TheMintyMate

    Bukkit has been good while it lasted, mainly thanks to dedicated developers
    of the project.

    Though Mojang employees appear to be committed to Bukkit, they have
    clearly stated "To make this clear: Mojang owns Bukkit. I'm personally
    going to update Bukkit to 1.8 myself. Bukkit IS NOT and WILL NOT BE
    the official API. - Nathan Adams @Dinnerbone", this doesn't seem like
    dedication. Is it a Bukkit's community's interest's to keep Bukkit as a
    separate plugin development API?
    +Source

    I guess at least it's beneficial to many developers and Bukkit server
    owners that Bukkit is being continued - lets just hope that Mojang
    don't change the functionality of Bukkit to their own ends.

    - now we just leave this thread having mixed feelings.
    - Minty
    Code:
    player.sendMessage("Bukkit.Closing.....Maybe.....");
    
     
    gdude2002 likes this.
  19. Offline

    JoeyDevs

    Sorry bad english and I dont follow, Is bukkit going to stop with updating there craftbukkit & API? IS it going down?
     
  20. Offline

    Rydian

    You said...
    The only thing you attributed to him was the initial creation, the first commit. That's why I felt the need to point out, to everybody (because we've seen how misinformed a lot of people are), that Dinnerbone did not just create it and then instantly drop it, he contributed a lot for a while.

    So you didn't bother telling them, and they showed no care because they weren't told, and their lack of care is why you didn't tell them?

    Might I ask for the blueprints to that time machine you have? :p

    Did Seph have a PR guy post the first post?

    'Cause it doesn't look like he did, but people are able to take what he said just fine, 'ya know... because they're not trying to grasp at straws for excuses to ignore direct statements from the source.
    </irresistible-snark>

    I'm not the person you quoted, but... Your statement that he left the channels gives readers the impression that he is not in them, which is misleading if he is in them.

    I assume that's why that person responded to show that he is in them.

    Dinnerbone said he's updating Bukkit for 1.8. Anything beyond that isn't clear as nobody has many any statements of intent that I've come across.
     
  21. Offline

    Skye

    Bukkit origin story:
     
    feildmaster likes this.
  22. Offline

    feildmaster

    The discussion was about the creation of bukkit, therefore instances involving the "creation of bukkit" were mentioned. Get your facts straight.

    His job is/was PR.

    I made no statement that he was not in the channels. That was someone else, and the one I was replying to was speaking out of context.
     
    obscurehero likes this.
  23. Offline

    DrPyroCupcake

    <removed>

    Looks like I need to find something else to do with my life.


    [edit by JaguarJo: removed spam and some other shit.]
     
    KingFaris11 likes this.
  24. Offline

    Franckydj28

    thank you for all @EvilSteph and the 1.8 version of bukkit. #bukkitdeath

    Bye Bye Bukkit :(

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

    Rydian

    I'm replying to what was posted. What was mentioned was only the first commit, which is potentially misleading, which is why I expanded on it. Would you prefer I have screenshotted the contribution history of the leading project members and posted that instead?

    That was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the idea that the other person was presenting, which was that people are not allowed to make statements for themselves and must have PR people doing it for them. I used this thread as an example of how that logic doesn't pan out in relatively-smaller situations.

    I could have just been all "You're posting for yourself, not with a PR person, is everything you say not a source?" but that doesn't match up nearly as well to the idea of announcements of project status and statements of intent, and Seph's announcement of intent included his own anyways.

    My bad on the attribution, I didn't follow the quote chain far enough back.

    That said, the same idea applies. Somebody posted that he left the channels, which gives readers the impression that he's not in them, thus the person posting that image for clarification of the current situation.
     
  26. Offline

    Wilbo123

    Well I'm relatively new to all this but not Minecraft

    Bukkit had a pretty good run and has done so amazing things not because they had to but because they wanted to, like all things, when you don't want to do it any more all of a sudden it seems like hard work.

    I love Bukkit and the inspiration it has given people more skilled than myself to go out a create things, the sandbox that that has made Minecraft what it is today but oh what a tangled web both Mojang and Bukkit have woven between them, none of which is their own doing.

    Like it or not Bukkit (or it derivatives) is the official multiplayer arm of Minecraft despite what Dinnerbone or anyone at Mojang might think or say, sure we have Realms but lets face it compared to Bukkit that duck was dead in the water even when it was launched, sorry Mojang I'm sure round a table of excited staff it sounded like a fantastic idea but compared to what Bukkit offers, Realms never really stood a chance.

    If Bukkit does as it surely must now die, maybe not straight away but slowly over time as the volunteers and disgruntled angry developers walk away, as they will do once the funds from third party servers dries up under the new EULA, then I fear that will not only damage the "community" but also Mojang and Minecraft it's self, something had to be done sure, selling kits to children for $100 was never on the list of "fun" things to do when Mojang set out the original EULA I am sure, but cutting off the arm that feeds you, wow that's a bold move.

    For a project to have run for some long and to have produced such a vast amount of inspirational work is unheard of, I hope this is not the end and I hope Mojang takes a hard long look at what its all about, punishing Bukkit for something that is not Bukkits fault will do neither party any favours and that fact that Mojang owns Bukkit just makes matters even worse.

    I'm sorry Bukkit and Bukkit servers grew so quicly and became so vastly popular Mojang, sorry it all got a bit out of control, sorry that something that was probably a stop gap arrangement until you found our feet, suddenly was as big a Mojang it's self in such a short period of time, but hey guys you have owned it for two years and have done nothing to change the direction it was traveling in ?

    TnT So for now I guess all we can do is book a table at the restaurant at the end of the universe and watch it all unfold
     
    BossEndorphin likes this.
  27. Offline

    dandwhit

    Woah Woah Woah Woah.... Wait! So is Bukkit going to be ended forever when the update comes out?
     
  28. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Wilbo123 erm, this was never about the money. The fact that mojang wants to stop P2W servers, by it self, has nothing to do with bukkit. Also, I think you need to read up on this more, because you can still sell cosmetics.
     
    _LB likes this.
  29. Offline

    Wilbo123

    Bukkit was never out to make money but got in the middle of two side that are, that was the cause of it's present troubles, Bukkit never set out to cause this to happen, it just happened, the same way flood wipes out bridge, the water was doing what water does running down hill and the bridge was just doing what it does spanning a gap but still one of them had to go.

    As for selling flower pots and picture frames, yes you might make enough to get by just but that's about all, there is no way that will be enough to support a big server with staff and developers of their own, the minigame servers might make it because they are a one shot deal that can change there content on a regular basis and need very little in terms of regular "vanilla" gameplay, lets not forget who plays on these servers, mostly young preteen and teenage boys, the reason they part with their or their parents cash is to gain something, be it an in game advantage or a psychological advantage, that extra bit of kudos for being VIP or the killing power to be top of this or that rank, although I whole heartedly agreed with the principles of any game not being pay to win, I just can't see why someone would pay to support something if there is no advantage to them for doing it, especially not teenage boys, they are a pretty shrewd and unforgiving bunch as a whole and to be far at that age, that's pretty much how it should be.

    The down side I think is both parties will suffer.

    As TnT has already stated "so long and thanks for all the fish" Minecraft

    Only the owners of Bukkit can change this course now, they need to decide if they are in, or out, for or against, the odd few that just do it for fun, like me will carry on regardless but that's not the point, I can afford to waste a few hundred pounds on setting up a server for the fun of it, a young person setting up a server for class mates and friends can't and that is the player base that has kept Minecraft going for so long, driven all those sales over the last few years, why ? because it was parent friendly and teenage boy friendly at the same time, something they were willing to spend pocket money and paper round money on, when that has gone, I fear the worst for Minecraft and for Mojang.

    Bukkit was the gear that kept that wheel turning, without it, it's only a matter of time.
     
    BossEndorphin likes this.
  30. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Wilbo123 I don't see how bukkit would be in any way effected by removal of P2W - this has nothing to do with the matter. Read EvilSeph's original post - this was about the enforcement of the EULA as a whole, not a clarification of a certain part.

    Also, clearly cosmetics sell well, seeing as many other big MMOs sell cosmetics at high prices, namely, TF2, which sells a cosmetic worth 100$, and player market has cosmetics for the price of 5000$ and above. Minecraft also allows a vastly bigger choice in cosmetics.
     
  31. Offline

    Eathuis

    I guess we will have to wait and see. No point in speculating at this time.
     
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