Mojang and the Bukkit Project

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

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    vubui COO of Mojang

    We think it’s about time we said something about the Bukkit Project and our connection with it. Hopefully this will help to clear up some misunderstandings, reassure some of you and answer some of the questions (or claims) that have been raised – especially by Wesley (Wolvereness).

    We would have loved to have done this sooner but we’ve been insanely busy… what with the 1.8 Update, Next Gen versions and all… and contrary to what a lot of people think we’re still a small team.

    First, regarding Wesley, it’s sad and disappointing that he’s acted the way he has. No one here likes having to respond to these things in public – but what choice do we have? If we don’t then speculation grows, and quickly the truth is far from what people are talking about, and many only hear rumors and take them as facts. So, here goes.

    Wesley Wolfe has mischaracterized and misrepresented the position with regard to the Bukkit Project & Mojang. It has been unfairly suggested that Mojang is in some way behind his request that CraftBukkit is taken down (the fact that he quoted a small part of an email I sent him in his DMCA takedown has been taken as some sort of endorsement of his claim). We want to make it clear that Mojang is not responsible and has no liability whatsoever in regard to these claims.

    The official Minecraft Server software that we have made available is not included in CraftBukkit. Therefore there is no obligation for us to provide the original code or any source code to the Minecraft Server, nor any obligation to authorize its use. Our refusal to make available or authorize the use of the original / source code of the Minecraft Server software cannot therefore be considered to give rise to an infringement of any copyright of Wesley, nor any other person.

    Wesley’s allegations are therefore wholly unfounded.

    Additionally, we believe that Wesley has no right to prevent the continued use of his contributions to the project – which he gave freely, knowing them to be subject to applicable open source licenses. We believe these licenses continue to bind all those who contributed to the Bukkit Project.

    Mojang hasn’t contributed to the Bukkit Project and, therefore, the official Minecraft Server software we make available is not subject to the applicable open source licenses.

    As Jeb announced on twitter, Mojang obtained rights in the project over 2 years ago. However they were effectively given to us when we hired the original team to work on Minecraft, and we haven’t touched it since – as everyone in the community that has been frustrated by our lack of involvement knows. For one thing, we don’t have the time or people available. For another, it has always been a community driven project that we didn’t (and still don’t) want to be unduly interfering with. It was only when the community was threatened that we felt the need to speak up. Since then we’ve been trying to decide the best approach for us to take with it.

    Here is the dilemma - we want to be able to support the community and the project BUT:
    - we want the community and the project to maintain its independence;
    - we won’t compromise our ownership of Minecraft and because there is open source code associated with it, we won’t authorize (and haven’t ever authorized) the inclusion of any of the Minecraft software we publish, unless we can be certain that our doing so won’t lead to people claiming rights over our Minecraft code.

    That’s why what Wesley did was so disappointing but that’s also why we were effectively given the rights we got two years ago - to stop someone being able to misuse or sabotage the Bukkit project, and to have the choice to support the Project if others wouldn’t.

    Deciding how we can best help Bukkit and the community is going to take time, patience and some further investigation into the Bukkit project as a whole. We are only just starting to get our heads around all of this but we are committed to doing so and ultimately we anticipate that the result will benefit all those involved.

    In the meantime we’d ask for your understanding, welcome your suggestions and ask that people don’t attempt to assert rights that they do not have, against us or anyone else.

    Thanks for reading.

    Vu
    COO of Mojang
    @vubui
     
    Xp10d3, Redned, Poker1st and 87 others like this.
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    HighRezz

    Interesting read. I hope things turn out for the better
     
    mapkbelgor likes this.
  3. Thank you! It's a lot more clear to me right now :)
    #MojangForLIFE
     
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    Jade

    Disregard my position of staff, for a moment. This is coming from a server admin, not staff member.

    You don't have time or people? Yeah. Sure. Okay. You have money though. What can money do? It can be exchanged for goods and services; ie. Working on Bukkit or other codebases. Is it really entirely inpossible to pay the team and/or even hire some people directly to help? Surely Mojang isn't sitting on stacks of money!

    That is all, and is only my stance. No one else's. <3
     
  5. Ehm... Wat?

    EDIT:
    They don't *just* have money. They are drowning under money.
     
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    se1by

    So you say all the files here are not decompiled from the official Minecraft Server?
    Which would mean they are also licensed as LGPL?
     
    Xp10d3, justcool393 and ams2990 like this.
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    ams2990

    I'm confused, then. If the Minecraft server source isn't included in CraftBukkit, then what is this? https://github.com/Bukkit/CraftBukkit/tree/master/src/main/java/net/minecraft/server

    I would love an official statement on how Mojang feels they have acquired the rights to GPL/LGPL code.
     
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    Alshain01

    NOTICE: THIS IS AN ATTEMPT AT A CLARIFICATION OF THE STANCE OUTLINED ABOVE, NOT AN ENDORSEMENT FROM ME

    Basically Mojang did not include it, the Bukkit team did, and therefore it is not their obligation. He said the "official" server was not included, not that the server was not included. The inclusion of the serer was not done by their work.

    NOTICE: THIS IS AN ATTEMPT AT A CLARIFICATION OF THE STANCE OUTLINED ABOVE, NOT AN ENDORSEMENT FROM ME
     
    1mpre55, StarScore, fromgate and 2 others like this.
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    unenergizer

    Thank you for the info.
     
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    CollinPotato

    Every day I become more disappointed in Mojang.
     
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    Quantum64

    The truth at last
     
    Xp10d3 likes this.
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    ams2990

    If Mojang owns Bukkit now, then they are responsible for Bukkit's violation of the GPL.
     
    Xp10d3, Hubok, sourcemaker and 15 others like this.
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    rippin

    Bukkit does not include the decompiled minecraft server code but CraftBukkit does.
     
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    Alshain01

    It's a grey area to be sure, but their argument is that no employee of Mojang did the deed. I'm explaining their stance, that is all. Do not take my comments as defense for or against it.
     
  15. Maybe Mojang wants to play on the fact that it's not actual Mojang code in CB, only partly-deobfuscated decompiled code. Do they mean this ugly thing becomes LGPL, and because of this CB LGPL is valid? It's strange.
     
    hintss likes this.
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    Necrodoom

    If mojang hasn't taken part in Bukkit and is not going to, then why is vubui tagged as a bukkit team member. Are the repos still locked to mbaxter, Amaranth, and other people in the bukkit team? If so, how can you claim being a member of a team you effectively deny?
     
    bluecraney, xize, intrepidus and 10 others like this.
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    xDeeKay

    Jade When vubui said they want the community and the project to maintain its independence, that probably means they have no intention of paying anyone for the Bukkit project. But then you run into the biggest problem.. Mojang now 'own' the project, yet haven't and probably will never write a line of code for the thing. These news threads are great and all, but I'm pretty sure the question we're all asking is who's gonna actually take the reins here and continue to update this project without creating an even bigger shit storm?
     
    Xp10d3, bluekelp and Inscrutable like this.
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    ams2990

    That's irrelevant for the purposes of the GPL. For the project to be in the clear, the Bukkit team would need to license the deobfuscated source under the LGPL. Even though it's been decompiled from the Mojang server jar, the deobfuscated code is still Mojang's intellectual property, so the only people who have the rights to so license it is Mojang themselves.
     
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    Dragonphase

    vubui

    Unfortunately, I feel this will still create a surplus of speculation within the community. It's good to have some word in on what's going on though, and to put some minds to ease. Thanks for letting us all know about this.
     
    hintss likes this.
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    Alshain01

    The repos are on github, I can still access them and in fact when this occurred I forked them and compiled it myself for my own use.

    As far as the "Team Member" thing, that's just a function of the forums that was required to post an announcement. Without rewriting the forum code for this special case it can't be avoided but is inaccurate.
     
    Walkman100 and kdude63 like this.
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    Necrodoom

    Alshain01 yes, everyone can fork projects on github. That doesn't mean you are part of the bukkit team, nor that you are able to commit directly to the bukkit repo. If Bukkit team is still supposed to have access to bukkit, then they would have access to modify it.

    Also, there's a very nifty feature called title, which one can easily edit, just like TnT edited his.

    If that fails, you still have the other administrators which can move topics.

    This effectively means that mojang is taking control of Bukkit forums.
     
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    Jade

    And I want stupid people to stop existing. Not everyone gets their way. Then they have two options. Help. Or let it die.
    On a semi relevant note, they still haven't told me my status of Moderator. I've yet to clear a queue since they told me "We'll let you know."
     
  23. Offline

    olloth

    vubui vubui
    That's not true at all. There IS Mojang code distributed with CraftBukkit. It doesn't matter if it's Mojang or Bukkit or Curse or Joe Blow distributing CraftBukkit.

    It is being distributed with minecraft, Craftbukkit, and Bukkit, and because Bukkit is GPL it must be distributed under GPL, or not at all.


    vubui vubui


    He did give them under the applicable open source license. He is not trying to revoke the open source license, he is trying to enforce it. This is his right, under GPL.

    vubui vubui


    It's never been said exactly what rights you obtained. You don't own contributions from anyone you didn't buy the contributions from. There are hundreds of contributors to the projects and they retain their copyright of their code and have only licensed you to use under the applicable open source licenses. (GPL and LGPL respectively.)

    vubui vubui
    No, obviously you won't open source minecraft. But you can't both get his code under GPL *AND* not open source minecraft. That is the point of GPL. Sorry.
     
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    dj4aces

    At this point, I'm just happy to see some sort of official response, and someone reaching out to the community to explain the position of the company.

    One way or the other, I hope this matter is resolved swiftly. I'd much rather look forward to a 1.8 release, instead of wondering what the future has in store for the Bukkit project.
     
    kdude63, majinnaibu and bluekelp like this.
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    Kezza

    Why pay when you have a bunch of enthusiasts ready to do the work for you for free?
    It astonishes me that Mojang has appeared to be so unappreciative for so long for all of these clever people willing to provide free-of-charge what constitutes all the broad possibilities that keep a far wider range of players keen to pay for their vanilla game, giving them a market far far wider than the 10-year-olds. All that plus players willing to pay for multiplayer servers out of their own pockets, the like of which other games have had to provide at their own expense (eg WOW). It's hilarious to imagine Minecraft minus the mods and plugins, just hilarious! I can tell you for sure, I'd be doing other things than this right now.... And if they do not show support for this glorious community, they'll lose the privilege to the next game that appears to take the place of Minecraft. Do not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, Mojang. You'll end up with nothing but goose poop.
     
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    Syd

    I think what he is trying to say is, that decompiled code is not the same, as the orginal code created by Mojang.
    That's an interesting point of view, actually.

    I don't know how waterproof this is, but it makes a bit sense. After all it's not Mojangs code in CraftBukkit, but modified decompiled code (of the official server.jar).


    However, thank you for the statement and all the good work. I hope you manage to save Bukkit and everything that is attached to it.
     
  27. Offline

    olloth


    All that changes is that the decompiled code must be distributed under GPL or not at all.

    It changes very little, because whoever is distributing that decompiled *ALSO* cannot distribute it under GPL since it is a derivative work of Mojangs.
     
  28. Modified partly-deobfuscated subset of decompiled compiled obfuscated Mojang code. Every word counts.
     
    Xp10d3, Walkman100, Totom3 and 2 others like this.
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    Necrodoom

    Syd that would effectively mean that anyone can decompile copyrighted code, modify it, and then redistribute it.
     
    andrewpo, kshade, justcool393 and 4 others like this.
  30. Offline

    Syd

    olloth
    a) it's LGPL for CraftBukkit
    b) this topic is as old as Bukkit. ;)
     
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