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

    bortman9

    WOW... I think my heart just split in two. I lost interest in Minecraft over the summer, but I still had a great interest in coding bukkit plugins. I'm shocked you guys are shutting down, and I was you the best. I have a feeling this means Minecraft may loose some players. I haven't played Singleplayer more than maybe 5-6 times since I started playing on servers. You guys did some truly amazing work, and you will always be remembered. If you guys find another game/project/program you guys want to transform like you did Minecraft, I wish you luck and hope it works out better than this did. I will definitely checking this forum occasionally, to check for anything you guys are doing. You guys truly did amazing things, and Minecraft will NEVER be the same without you guys there to bring the multiplayer aspect of each update to life. We'll all miss bukkit. Good luck in the future, and also, NEVER give up.
     
    mine-care likes this.
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    GeyserGod

    You know I find it funny that even after they edited the first post with the real story you guys still think Bukkit is closing down. If you read the story in the link then you will note that it isn't closing down, its just change a few top members of the group. And according to the full story Mojang has owned Bukkit for several years now so Mojang can't do anything to Bukkit as far as the EULA stuff since they own it.

    The Full story also states that there will be a 1.8 update coming and that Mojang will not be taking over the running of Bukkit and making it the official API as Nathan Adams is taking on the project and will be keeping it running.

    As a continuation of that since Mojang owns Bukkit there is very little doubt in my mind that even if everyone currently working on Bukkit were to quit I am betting that Mojang would take over and keep it running with little or no change except the updates coming out faster with fewer bugs and a higher chance that we will finally get a recommended build instead of Dev and Beta builds.
     
  4. Offline

    mine-care

    Thanks alot for everything bukkit staff & developers, it was and will be one of the most successfull mc servers built.
    Also thanks a lot to everyone replying in Plugin development, i belive we all learned something from eachother...
    Hope mojang changes idea and lets bukkit proceed...
    It was great meeting you all (most of you at least).

    PS dont read the above aricle while listening to "Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse of the Heart"

    EDIT: i was a bit like bortman9 because i stoped playing original mc and used it to test plugins and/or use minigames. i belive they wil lose players too, 1st the donation eula thingy causing a lot of servers to shut and then bam ther goes bukkit :- (
     
  5. Offline

    lewis_hutsby

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    SatisfiedSpirit

    Why do the people that quit have to quit, they should continue doing it under Mojang's permission, it is there EULA isn't it? If they say so people like Seph can stay and do what they do.
     
  7. Offline

    desht

    I laughed at the idea too, but I'm somewhat less sanguine about it now. There won't be a 1.8 Bukkit/CraftBukkit until the legal wrangling has been solved one way or another (it's entirely possible this will go to court and the possibility exists of a judgement that the code can't be distributed at all).

    It's all turned into a bit of a clusterfuck, and the trouble has been storing up ever since the original licensing decision was made in 2011. While Bukkit contains no Mojang code and can validly be licensed under the GPL, CraftBukkit does contain proprietary code, and it's legality has always been extremely shaky; but Mojang stood by at the time and chose not to take action, and continued not to take action after semi-secretly acquiring Bukkit. I suspect quite a few people (both at Mojang and the core Bukkit team) have been kicking the legal can down the road for a while now, hoping that the legal incompatibilities of the Minecraft and Bukkit/CraftBukkit licenses could be shoved under the carpet. And that was never a viable long-term strategy.

    A lot of people are throwing abuse at Wolvereness right now, but he has a very valid case for filing a DMCA takedown: he owns copyright to GPL'd code which Mojang have (now openly) claimed ownership of, and are prepared to publish in violation of said GPL. And of course Wolvereness isn't the only developer with such a grievance (I too have an admittedly very small amount of code in Bukkit/CraftBukkit, and I could also file a takedown if I chose to). Turns out we've all been writing code for Mojang's benefit, and it took EvilSeph's message to make them publicly admit that.

    In any case, I'm shelving any future plugin development until this has been cleared up, for better or worse.
     
  8. Offline

    uvbeenzaned

    I don't understand why you would care. Why wouldn't anyone want code that they wrote for Bukkit to go towards an awesome project in the end with some of what is in Bukkit potentially making it into the game one day? It sounds like a privilege to me. I would be more than happy to contribute to a Mojang project. None of you seem to care about that though and are so concerned with all this license mess.
     
  9. uvbeenzaned People would care, and they have a right to. Yes, they make contributions most likely because they want the project to be improved, but they also want the freedom of the project that GPL offers. Without a valid GPL, this freedom is not necessarily available.
     
    Inscrutable and desht like this.
  10. Offline

    Necrodoom

    Bukkit was never declared a "Mojang project". What are you talking about?
     
  11. Offline

    desht

    I care because I contributed under the (mistaken) belief that my code was going to benefit an open source community-driven project. The fact that Mojang have owned Bukkit all along but chosen to keep quiet about that leaves a bad taste. They've effectively tricked a lot of people into writing code for them for free.

    No, it isn't a "privilege" as far as I'm concerned to be writing code under false pretences. I'm glad my minor contributions were accepted, but I dealt with evilmidget38 and Wolvereness - not Mojang.

    I'm concerned about this "license mess" because it has the very real potential to end Bukkit for good.
     
  12. Offline

    wrecktify

    Completely absurd. Extremely irresponsible and selfish of this individual to take back something he was putting forth to a community project. Whether mojang was the owner or not doesnt matter, they let bukkit do it's thing for 2+ years without any legal repurcussions against contributors. To even argue this is about the code he contributed is laughable; someone is clearly upset that they didn't like how things went and this is their way of trying to control it. Get outa here kid
     
    harl and uvbeenzaned like this.
  13. All who do any kind of server hosting or writing code for anything Minecraft-related are somehow also doing it for Mojang in one or another way, independently of who owns it - would you be more pleased to write the same code for Curse or Microsoft or the Prince of Persia?

    In my opinion this could serve information though, because some things might have to be revealed now - however potentially at the cost of the actual Bukkit community "extra to the Bukkit team lead and developers", those people who write the plugins and stay with this modding community, which is not their only option.

    Extra to the aspect of information i don't see anything ethically appealing in those copyright and "ending Bukkit" games, because they explicitly try to kill the project themselves, while it could be handed over to others. I will keep a door reserved for "it had to be done due to XYZ" due to not having enough information.

    Since a somewhat complet-ish plugin API would render big parts of the Bukkit API somewhat unreasonable to keep, but will also very likely provide more efficient ways to implement it, i don't see why Bukkit shouldn't exist until then. And "then" you would have to recode a big lot of Bukkit anyway to use the Mojang API and not conflict with it. Bukkit can not be the official API, that's just hilarious, unless it turns out that there won't be a plugin API ever - however recent changes in Minecraft hint at a plugin API coming sooner than "in another 4 years", though.

    I also don't think that it's valid to assume that Bukkit effectively is "all of Minecraft" and that the Bukkit project should own Mojang or other such strange things. I feel some things are just seen upside down.
     
  14. Offline

    gorcbj

    Hey, I know a game that you might be able to help with servers.
    It's name is unturned. which is basically a combo of Minecraft and DayZ. It's a relatively new game on steam and is very tilted toward the multiplayer part of games. If the bukkit comunity were to start making servers for unturned it could result in a big comeback
     
  15. Offline

    robotnikthingy

    This Wesley or whatever the hell his name is probably doesn't even have the damn money to follow through with the DMCA. I myself would rather spend the thousands paying off bills or getting a nice TV than trying to spite people over something stupid over the internet

    Also, the guy is probably a NEET anyways living off the government or something
     
  16. Offline

    Musaddict


    Don't really want to rekindle a 2.5 year old argument, but Mojang lightly/not at all enforced their EULA in much the same way that the Bukkit admins turned a blind eye to tipping for projects until it came to bite them in the ass. Heck, even admitted to this fact in the thread:

    This went on for 13 months.
     
  17. Offline

    Dark_Redeu

    First, sorry all for my bad or incomplete english.

    Well, obviating the fact that I am using a translator:


    It is clear that when a person creates a business, or intellectual property in the world in which we live is obvious that you do in order to get rich, it is by definition the objective of such purpose.

    That said, I personally think that Mojang as a company intends to make money from their intellectual and electronic property that is the Minecraft itself, to that extent, not all agree?
    And I think that from the beginning the game has always been rather be oriented single player ..

    The problem comes when, despite knowing that Bukkit and his team devoted great efforts to create a stable and useful aspect of the game in multiplayer mode, now come with all this mess the EULA, which hardly benefits the community that is created THANK far Bukkit and Mojang not, because all I've been doing in my opinion, is hampering such a wonderful project, created by people who really love this game.

    There would have been smarter Bukkit support a more active and constructive way?
    so that this project will not only improve the multiplayer experience of so many people, but the community in and of itself legion extension of basic users.

    It really is very frustrating as a server administrator, read the Mojang itself Bukkit dynamite with a record tax collection effort, so, welcome to unsuspecting capitalist world, where it is not regarded by the community or people, but the only thing that counts is the cold hard cash in your wallet.

    In our case, as a server that counts is the people, who really makes it enjoyable gaming experience.

    Of course, if some servers survive or not, I doubt it because Mojang, as it is clear that if these, in one way or another do not report him direct benefit seek ways to control or close either copyrighted or other as they are removed from the sleeve.

    It is clear that rain never comfortable around the world, and what I want to criticize is to be given more importance to money than people that make a game great to work in any of its aspects.

    The news given here, are more than sad, it can be the beginning of the end, perhaps for the better, or perhaps worse ... but as the simple cosas..será paint, pay to play on-line, is a rough diamond that you certainly do not want to lose, and you definitely want to exploit at the expense of a great work done by the whole community and Bukkit trailing behind him.

    I sincerely hope I'm wrong .. in the sense that it is coming dangerously pay to play ..

    That said, thank the entire community, and especially the Bukkit team, this titanic and thankless work done during this time, so many hours of fun and headaches has provided us all.

    Rest in peace:

    Bukkit, community and servers, as many have died and will die because of these facts ...A game that will not jugado..jamás recordado..por much they try to sell it as it is the 'best' ..
     
  18. Offline

    NewsByShawn

  19. Offline

    JWhy

    No, you're allowed to use the minecraft server code owned by Mojang. It might have been modified (with CraftBukkit it IS actually), but you're likely in a private setting when running a server.
    https://storify.com/lukegb/the-tale-of-bukkit-for-minecraft-1-8
    That's what lukegb says, however @Wolvereness' DMCA claim might prevent Mojang (and lukegb) legally from publishing another CraftBukkit version, without having rewritten his contributions to the CraftBukkit code base
     
  20. Offline

    robotnikthingy

    He cant prevent another version of bukkit from being published if he doesn't have the money to follow through with his claim.
     
  21. Offline

    MCWizard111

    this is gonna be interesting to see how mojang handles this lol
     
  22. Offline

    JWhy

    Ideally, claiming one's right shouldn't require the use of a significant amount of money.
    However, Wolvereness did follow through his complaint, as you can see here
     
  23. Offline

    1_rick


    But CraftBukkit is GPL. It's not just Open Source, it's Free Software. It's right there in the GPLv3: "Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
    have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
    them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you
    want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new
    free programs, and that you know you can do these things."
     
  24. Offline

    NewsByShawn

    This is pretty unsettling to say the least.
    Will the api continue?
    Will plugins continue?
    Should we stop developing our own plugins on the current api?
    Should we just give up on the awesome plugins we have built our gameplay around?

     
  25. Offline

    JWhy

    The Bukkit API as it is is going to be discontinued. I'm very sure about that. The official Minecraft API has been announced a long time ago, Mojang (precisely the Bukkit developers hired by Mojang) now experiences some sorta pressure due to this legal conflict, which leaves them in an implicit duty to provide a replacement for the Bukkit API
     
  26. Offline

    NFSMAN14

    If Bukkit is coming to an end this will be the saddest day in all of our entire lives. :/

    However, if Bukkit is merely changing hands of ownership and or being revamped, then hopefully the community and it's awesome staff/contributors will be able to keep Bukkit's heart beating for a long time to come.

    ~NFS
     
  27. Offline

    Jameshobbs

    I am eager for them to release the official API. I feel bad for those that rely heavily on the bukkit api though. In the end it will be worthwhile to update to the official API as it will be supported fully by mojang and will be less of a headache in terms of waiting for bukkit to catch up to new versions of minecraft.

    I just wish we had some idea as to the status of the official API and possibly some snapshots so we can start analyzing what is needed to rewrite our code for the official API.
     
  28. Offline

    CoolV1994

    I think this plugin API is like Herobrine. Every few versions they claim to do something with it.
     
    Gamecube762, asofold and JWhy like this.
  29. Offline

    pta2002

    Thanks for everything. You helped me a lot. Even though I never made a server, I always had fun making crazy plugins and showing them to my friends. Again, thanks. I'm sad to see this go :(
     
  30. Offline

    uvbeenzaned

    I like the way you think. People are so greedy with what they created and all people want is recognition for what they did instead of giving without wanting anything back. I don't even care if other people make money off of my free stuff. If I opened it up, LET EM HAVE IT. I don't care!
     
    harl likes this.
  31. Offline

    _LB

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