5 ms·

Bukkit no longer available for download. Hit with DMCA takedown.

24 points by JoshGlazebrook 12y ago

hartator 12y ago
What's bukkit?
- 8_hours_ago 12y ago
  It seems to be related to Minecraft servers. http://wiki.bukkit.org/Main_Page http://wiki.bukkit.org/Main_Page There's not a lot of context in the take-down notice... does anyone know the actual story? http://dl.bukkit.org/dmca/notification.txt http://dl.bukkit.org/dmca/notification.txt
  - Macha 12y ago
    Bukkit is a wrapper around the Minecraft server that is one of the two major modding APIs. It is used for a lot of server plugins for multiplayer gameplay. It consists of two major projects. Bukkit itself is an API that plugin authors code against. In theory it could be implemented for e.g. Terraria too but in practice its completely tied to Minecraft. Bukkit (the api) is licensed under GPL with little issue. CraftBukkit is the implementation of this API. It is licensed under LGPL. This was originally started as a community project. However the issue is that CraftBukkit includes a decompiled Minecraft server, which mojang never officially allowed. This meant that Bukkit (the server) contained the bukkit api (GPL), the craftbukkit implementation (LGPL) and the Minecraft server ( All rights reserved) and was being distributed as "GPL". While mojang looked the other way about their proprietary software being distributed as GPL, everyone was pretty much happy. The issue gets muddier when Mojang hired the core Bukkit devs to work on Minecraft. They left the Bukkit project to run itself and everything continued as is for two years. Then two years later the community team announce they're shutting down the project. At this point, Mojang reveals that when they hired the original team, they also acquired the Bukkit project (trademarks, infrastructure, the original core teams code, etc) and as such it didn't belong to the current community team to shut down. Now one of the GPL contributors is demanding that Mojang take down the project because it contains his code under the GPL but isn't validly licensed under the GPL due to containing the all rights reserved mojang code.
- holic 12y ago
  Bukkit was a modding API built on top of Minecraft, using CraftBukkit as a bridge between the Minecraft server JAR and the Bukkit API.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- kevingadd 12y ago
  No, read the notice. It's not from Mojang.
  - georgemcbay 12y ago
    It wasn't from Mojang but from what I understand (very little, to be honest, I'm not much of a Minecrafter and only read up on this because the circumstances of the DMCA strike me as being so weird), it is due to some of the developers of this software being in a spat with Mojang: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/08/21/minecraft-bukkit-team-lead-tries-to-end-development-but-mojang-steps-in/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/08/21/minecraft-bukkit-team-lead... Seems like: 1) Mojang implemented EULA some 3rd party bukkit devs didn't like, they decided to stop supporting their Minecraft API software and publically quit the project, announcing the "end" of the project. 2) Turns out Mojang actually owns (or thinks they own) the project because some members of the bukkit team went to work for Mojang and part of the terms was that they would own it(?) 3) One of the external devs files DMCA to spite Mojang(?) citing GPLv3 incompatibility with being shipped alongside non-Free Software. There's a lot of legal nuance here that I don't have any answers for, like how copyright assignment worked on this project and whether the people who "sold" bukkit to Mojang had the legal right to do so. If they actually did then Mojang (as copyright holder) could just relicense the project under a different license than GPLv3 and make this all go away in the blink of an eye, so I'm kind of assuming they don't own it as much as they appear to think they do. Would love to hear more about this from someone who pays attention to this stuff because this seems like a fascinating copyright situation. In any case, this is a really good case-in-point as to why getting copyright assignment from external developers on any FS/OSS project that you run is a really good idea in general.
Gamblore 12y ago
This has wide ramifications for quite a lot of projects that have implemented parts of the Bukkit API that this guy has contributed code towards. CraftBukkit and Spigot are used on most servers but it also affects a lot of mods like Tekkit, MCP etc I hope they sort it out.
kevingadd 12y ago
So, from reading the notice and looking at commits: This guy, whoever he is, has been making fixes/adding features to his fork of Bukkit, and some (most?) of them have been getting merged to trunk. Bukkit's repo is apparently GPL. Now he's pissed off for some reason so he issues a DMCA to take down software he participated in the development of because it violates the GPL by depending on the closed-source Minecraft server software? Super confusing. I don't understand how you would be a developer on this project without knowing that it depends on closed-source software to function (and yes, is basically incompatible with the GPL as a result). The end result of this appears to be that nobody can use the software he works on other than developers able to do the build locally and violate the GPL by hand themselves. Bizarre.
- efstone 12y ago
  As a copyright attorney (stonevaughanlaw.com), I can tell you this is total b.s. I've sent hundreds of takedown notices for various clients, namely FUNimation Entertainment. Over 9,000 notices, in fact. And I've actually handled lawsuits involving specifics of the 17 USC § 512(c) provision. No one can issue a DMCA takedown notice on behalf of Mojang without Mojang's authorization. Period. A regular notice, yes--but not a DMCA takedown notice. This is because a DMCA notice triggers very specific and harsh liability if not acted upon. (Unless the alleged infringer files a counter-notification...but I digress) As for copyright and the code this guy wrote, it's considered a work of joint authorship and no joint author can prohibit the exploitation of a joint work by any of the other joint authors. They can each do what they want with it. All that the disgruntled dev can do is to sue for an accounting of royalties to be paid based on monies earned from the exploitation of the work. Have fun with that calculation. And notably, such a suit is NOT an infringement suit. So it stays in state court and doesn't carry any of the crazy statutory damages or attorney's fees penalties that an infringement suit would, assuming the work was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, which it isn't. As for the GPL, it's a nonexclusive license, revocable at will as to new users. Any dev who contributed to the work can license the work however he/she wants. Only the licensees (us users of bukkit) are bound by the GPL if and only if we downloaded bukkit pursuant to a GPL agreement. All Mojang has to do is file a counter-notification and the files can all be reinstated without the webhost worrying about liability.
apo 12y ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/admincraft/comments/2fd0rt/multiplays_wesley_wolfe_issues_dmca_takedown/ http://www.reddit.com/r/admincraft/comments/2fd0rt/multiplay...
0xEA 12y ago
mind = blown
JoshTheGeek 12y ago
Fun fact: Mojang bought Bukkit. (@jeb_ tweeted the other day. This notice states that bukkit uses Minecraft's code without permission, and it did at one point. Now, though, as Mojang owns both, I think it should be allowed. Oh, and a Mojang employee (Dinnerbone) has stated he will be updating it to support 1.8.
LiroXIV 12y ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_the_original_contributors_to_bukkit/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_... contains probably one of the best explanations I've seen of the whole ordeal. This could have been prevented IF the Bukkit code was under a permissive license rather than the GPL, or they had some type of contributor license agreement.
berred 12y ago
It is available. https://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/bukkit/ https://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/bukkit/ Your welcome. =P
- CMonster95 12y ago
  That's not CraftBukkit. That's the API.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

hartator 12y ago

What's bukkit?

8_hours_ago 12y ago
It seems to be related to Minecraft servers. http://wiki.bukkit.org/Main_Page http://wiki.bukkit.org/Main_Page There's not a lot of context in the take-down notice... does anyone know the actual story? http://dl.bukkit.org/dmca/notification.txt http://dl.bukkit.org/dmca/notification.txt
- Macha 12y ago
  Bukkit is a wrapper around the Minecraft server that is one of the two major modding APIs. It is used for a lot of server plugins for multiplayer gameplay. It consists of two major projects. Bukkit itself is an API that plugin authors code against. In theory it could be implemented for e.g. Terraria too but in practice its completely tied to Minecraft. Bukkit (the api) is licensed under GPL with little issue. CraftBukkit is the implementation of this API. It is licensed under LGPL. This was originally started as a community project. However the issue is that CraftBukkit includes a decompiled Minecraft server, which mojang never officially allowed. This meant that Bukkit (the server) contained the bukkit api (GPL), the craftbukkit implementation (LGPL) and the Minecraft server ( All rights reserved) and was being distributed as "GPL". While mojang looked the other way about their proprietary software being distributed as GPL, everyone was pretty much happy. The issue gets muddier when Mojang hired the core Bukkit devs to work on Minecraft. They left the Bukkit project to run itself and everything continued as is for two years. Then two years later the community team announce they're shutting down the project. At this point, Mojang reveals that when they hired the original team, they also acquired the Bukkit project (trademarks, infrastructure, the original core teams code, etc) and as such it didn't belong to the current community team to shut down. Now one of the GPL contributors is demanding that Mojang take down the project because it contains his code under the GPL but isn't validly licensed under the GPL due to containing the all rights reserved mojang code.
holic 12y ago
Bukkit was a modding API built on top of Minecraft, using CraftBukkit as a bridge between the Minecraft server JAR and the Bukkit API.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kevingadd 12y ago
No, read the notice. It's not from Mojang.
- georgemcbay 12y ago
  It wasn't from Mojang but from what I understand (very little, to be honest, I'm not much of a Minecrafter and only read up on this because the circumstances of the DMCA strike me as being so weird), it is due to some of the developers of this software being in a spat with Mojang: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/08/21/minecraft-bukkit-team-lead-tries-to-end-development-but-mojang-steps-in/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/08/21/minecraft-bukkit-team-lead... Seems like: 1) Mojang implemented EULA some 3rd party bukkit devs didn't like, they decided to stop supporting their Minecraft API software and publically quit the project, announcing the "end" of the project. 2) Turns out Mojang actually owns (or thinks they own) the project because some members of the bukkit team went to work for Mojang and part of the terms was that they would own it(?) 3) One of the external devs files DMCA to spite Mojang(?) citing GPLv3 incompatibility with being shipped alongside non-Free Software. There's a lot of legal nuance here that I don't have any answers for, like how copyright assignment worked on this project and whether the people who "sold" bukkit to Mojang had the legal right to do so. If they actually did then Mojang (as copyright holder) could just relicense the project under a different license than GPLv3 and make this all go away in the blink of an eye, so I'm kind of assuming they don't own it as much as they appear to think they do. Would love to hear more about this from someone who pays attention to this stuff because this seems like a fascinating copyright situation. In any case, this is a really good case-in-point as to why getting copyright assignment from external developers on any FS/OSS project that you run is a really good idea in general.

Gamblore 12y ago

This has wide ramifications for quite a lot of projects that have implemented parts of the Bukkit API that this guy has contributed code towards. CraftBukkit and Spigot are used on most servers but it also affects a lot of mods like Tekkit, MCP etc I hope they sort it out.

kevingadd 12y ago

So, from reading the notice and looking at commits: This guy, whoever he is, has been making fixes/adding features to his fork of Bukkit, and some (most?) of them have been getting merged to trunk. Bukkit's repo is apparently GPL. Now he's pissed off for some reason so he issues a DMCA to take down software he participated in the development of because it violates the GPL by depending on the closed-source Minecraft server software? Super confusing. I don't understand how you would be a developer on this project without knowing that it depends on closed-source software to function (and yes, is basically incompatible with the GPL as a result). The end result of this appears to be that nobody can use the software he works on other than developers able to do the build locally and violate the GPL by hand themselves. Bizarre.

efstone 12y ago
As a copyright attorney (stonevaughanlaw.com), I can tell you this is total b.s. I've sent hundreds of takedown notices for various clients, namely FUNimation Entertainment. Over 9,000 notices, in fact. And I've actually handled lawsuits involving specifics of the 17 USC § 512(c) provision. No one can issue a DMCA takedown notice on behalf of Mojang without Mojang's authorization. Period. A regular notice, yes--but not a DMCA takedown notice. This is because a DMCA notice triggers very specific and harsh liability if not acted upon. (Unless the alleged infringer files a counter-notification...but I digress) As for copyright and the code this guy wrote, it's considered a work of joint authorship and no joint author can prohibit the exploitation of a joint work by any of the other joint authors. They can each do what they want with it. All that the disgruntled dev can do is to sue for an accounting of royalties to be paid based on monies earned from the exploitation of the work. Have fun with that calculation. And notably, such a suit is NOT an infringement suit. So it stays in state court and doesn't carry any of the crazy statutory damages or attorney's fees penalties that an infringement suit would, assuming the work was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, which it isn't. As for the GPL, it's a nonexclusive license, revocable at will as to new users. Any dev who contributed to the work can license the work however he/she wants. Only the licensees (us users of bukkit) are bound by the GPL if and only if we downloaded bukkit pursuant to a GPL agreement. All Mojang has to do is file a counter-notification and the files can all be reinstated without the webhost worrying about liability.

apo 12y ago

http://www.reddit.com/r/admincraft/comments/2fd0rt/multiplays_wesley_wolfe_issues_dmca_takedown/ http://www.reddit.com/r/admincraft/comments/2fd0rt/multiplay...

0xEA 12y ago

mind = blown

JoshTheGeek 12y ago

Fun fact: Mojang bought Bukkit. (@jeb_ tweeted the other day. This notice states that bukkit uses Minecraft's code without permission, and it did at one point. Now, though, as Mojang owns both, I think it should be allowed. Oh, and a Mojang employee (Dinnerbone) has stated he will be updating it to support 1.8.

LiroXIV 12y ago

http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_the_original_contributors_to_bukkit/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_... contains probably one of the best explanations I've seen of the whole ordeal. This could have been prevented IF the Bukkit code was under a permissive license rather than the GPL, or they had some type of contributor license agreement.

berred 12y ago

It is available. https://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/bukkit/ https://dl.bukkit.org/downloads/bukkit/ Your welcome. =P

CMonster95 12y ago
That's not CraftBukkit. That's the API.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]