First off, I am publishing this not to deter popularity from Wolverness but
state facts that should be true, most of these will not be written by me so I will do my best to point out false facts but I am not responsible for any reputation loss of Wolverness when someone else's facts are wrong!
Before we get started I would like to point out this thread is done and modeled based off of @
Queue 's A shitstorm rap up.
So to start off I will be summing up what damage Wolverness has done to not only Bukkit,
BUT Spigot
AND Cauldron(MCPC). I will sum this up with the help of Jaded's(@
Jadedcat TwitLonger Tweet,
Link follows.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s81jha
What is a DMCA Takedown?
Also Jaded said yesterday, when this thread was posted 9/5/2014 it was two days ago (9/3/2014)
Jaded said:
Many people woke up yesterday to the craftbukkit download being removed due to a DMCA.
https://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/craftbukkit/
Also Cauldron(MCPC) as of this day.
Jaded said:
In short order Spigot was also hit with a DMCA.
So to sum this up bukkit developer responsible for between 1/4 to 1/3 of bukkit's code Wolverness issued the DMCA Takedown.
Jaded said:
Many users INCORRECTLY believe Mojang issued the DMCA.
If you read the notification you find that is not the case.
A bukkit contributer Wolvereness issued the DMCA on his own behalf.
Jaded said:
This is where things get into legal grounds ... I AM NOT A LAWYER.
Wolv (not the streamer) is the third highest contributor to the Bukkit project. He arguably has contributed 1/4-1/3 of the code base.
Bukkit started as a GPL project. When the main Bukkit devs (at the time) were hired by Mojang, Mojang also purchased the rights to the Bukkit project, in an attempt to ensure the project would be maintained. They agreed to leave the project in the capable hands of the community. And for 2 years Bukkit carried on.
Bukkit as an open source community maintained project has many contributors outside the initial owners , those contributors were not informed by EvilSeph that the rights to Bukkit had been sold to Mojang. From what I can tell there is nothing illegal about that.
Wolv and the other contributors were contributing to a code base they thought belonged to EvilSeph and the other main devs. They had no issue doing this for 2 years. During this time the Mojang Server code started to be shipped as part of craftbukkit for ease. The Mojang Server code is closed source. At the point at which that occured any one of the contributers could have mentioned that cb was shipping a closed source code base with an open source project. They ignored it and had no issues with this fact.
A few weeks ago EvilSeph got tired of doing the dev work for Bukkit. Why? We don't know. But he made accusations on the Bukkit forums that Mojang planned to shut down Bukkit so he was shutting it down before they could. He knew he had sold ownership to Mojang. He knew they weren't going to kill a project they owned. But he panicked everyone. And tried to use the panic to blame Mojang for the "death" of Bukkit.
Mojang stepped in and said.. Its ours, its been ours since you sold it to us, if you don't want to maintain it anymore we'll take over and make sure the community still has Bukkit.
Wolv, the guy from the beginning of this post became unhappy. Why? No idea. Maybe he wants money too. He had been contributing to an open source project he thought was owned by EvilSeph, and he found out it was owned by Mojang instead. So he was contributing to an open source project he knew didn't belong to him. The only new news was that it belonged to a company and not an individual.
After some thought/debate or whatever went on in the background he determined that if a GPL project was distributing Closed Source code, the GPL license was invalid. Of course this fact didn't bother him for 2 years. It only started bothering him now when he found that a company rather than a broke individual owned the project he had been contributing to.
He apparently messaged Mojang and was answered by the Chief Operating Officer
"Mojang has not authorized the inclusion of any of its proprietary
Minecraft software (including its Minecraft Server software) within the
Bukkit project to be included in or made subject to any GPL or LGPL
license, or indeed any other open source license"
He then decided that if Mojang never gave permission for their project to be included in a GPL project than the GPL license he submitted on was void, and he could close source the code HE contributed. At which point he issued a DMCA takedown against Bukkit and Spigot for distributing his code.
So the legal questions at hand for a team of actual lawyers:
- Can a GPL code base link to a closed source code without the closed source code being made GPL? -- In my limited understanding a closed source code can't use GPL code without going open source, not sure if it works the other way around though.
- Can a GPL project distribute a closed source library/base? Do they need special permission?
TLDR:
- EvilSeph has a hissy fit and declares Bukkit closed
- Mojang says "You sold Bukkit to us we'll keep it going"
- EvilSeph goes "Oopps totally forgot I sold it" - cause everyone randomly forgets selling rights to large projects...
- Dinnerbone starts updating Bukkit
- Wolv decides that after 2 years of submitting code to a GPL project distributing a closed source code base that his code is now closed source, the GPL license is invalid, and issues a DMCA takedown for Bukkit and Spigot based on his code
This is not my opinion
Jaded said:
Personal Opinion and snark:
This guy contributed for 2 years to a code base. And when he found out it was owned by a massive company as opposed to a broke individual employee of that company he decided to mention that the license might be invalid, and had been invalid for 2 years. He allows the community to think Mojang issued the takedown against code Mojang was working on updating. Cause everyone issues takedowns against their own content that they are actively maintaining. I am guessing he thinks this will force Mojang to either pay him and other contributers off, hand over Bukkit to him, or open source Minecraft Server code.
I doubt Mojang would want to rewrite Bukkit to remove his contributions. And I doubt Mojang can change the license to closed source without the contributors okaying it. Since I live in the real world.... I don't think he's going to get what he wants. Either lawyers will find he is wrong and invalidate the DMCA or Mojang will just go back to working on Minecraft and Bukkit will die. Wolv has just given Mojang plausible deniability to end Bukkit. Because if Mojang decides not to fight the DMCA, and not to open source their code, and not to pay off Wolv and other contributers, they don't have to.
They can just walk away and go back to work on their game which already takes up plenty of dev time. They can opt to write off Bukkit. At that point Bukkit is dead. Mojang owns it. They aren't going to let some random person claim it and try and fix the problem. At that point Bukkit is dead. And the person who killed it is Wolverness with his sudden need to argue that he has been submitting code for 2 years to a project with an invalid license. So if Bukkit dies.... we can all thank the guy who gave Mojang an easy out.
Will Mojang take the easy out? Will Bukkit die? No idea. I haven't got a clue what legalities are involved. That's for lawyers to decide. It is not however going to be solved on twitter, reddit or the bukkit/spigot forums.
Sp for now, sit back, play non Bukkit minecraft and make sure you say thank you to Wolverness for suddenly growing a convenient conscience and at least temporarily killing Bukkit.
It seems to me Mojang isn't the one trying to kill the project, the bukkit contributors are the ones trying to kill it. Never play chicken with someone who doesn't need what you are selling.
That is the end of Jaded's portion, I would like to thank @
Jadedcat for this amazing summary.
So, Wolverness seemed to have issued the DMCA takedown not because of his own code but because a (logically considered) random Open Source Project included closed source code. (Owned by Mojang)
So the solution you may ask? Well there are 3:
1. Mojang makes it's server code opensource
2. Bukkit gets permission to use Mojang's server code and goes closed source
3. Someone rewrites legally invalid code
And there is also the possibility of Mojang just dropping Bukkit
Also if Mojang's server code goes open source they can no longer have a EULA so option one is not that likel
y.
____________________________________________________________________________
Part 2
This is an update to the previous section (ACTUALLY REASSURING!!)
What follows is some things that Vubui (Chief Operating Officer of Mojang) on the Bukkit forums, link follows.
http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/mojang-and-the-bukkit-project.309715/
So, Wesley has conveyed some
huge misconceptions.
vubui said:
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).
I am no lawyer, but this seems to put Wesley in some muddy legal grounds.
vubui said:
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.
Wesley DMCA Takedown is pretty much pointless now.
vubui said:
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.
So, Mojang wants the MC community to pick the project back up and because this project is open-source Mojang will not include any official Mojang Code.
vubui said:
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.
Just a nice rap up
vubui said:
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.
vubui said:
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.
If only I could thank @vubui for this wonderful, explanation. Well if you read this thanks!
Also, just a quick sum up, for part 2, Wolverness seemed to get really mad and make some false legal accusations and base them off of intentionally misinterpreted information. Bukkit is safe and strong.
