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Hard to tell what's going on here - but it looks like the developer of a mod (Bukkit) has a large enough userbase, that he's using that as leverage and trying t

Hard to tell what's going on here - but it looks like the developer of a mod (Bukkit) has a large enough userbase, that he's using that as leverage and trying to blackmail Mojang to open source the official Minecraft Server. --EDIT-- fixed spelling.

teraflop 12y ago
Looking at the actual DMCA request [1], it's definitely weird. The argument seems to be that: * Wolvereness's contributions to CraftBukkit are licensed under the GPL, and therefore may only be redistributed on that license * CraftBukkit itself is released under the GPL * ...but Wolvereness claims that CraftBukkit includes Mojang's Minecraft server, which is proprietary (apparently this is disputed by Mojang themselves, though) * Therefore CraftBukkit's GPL license is illegitimate, and the CraftBukkit developers' right to use Wolvereness's contributions is terminated. Even if the factual claims in the DMCA takedown are correct (which is hard to verify now that the repository is offline), it strikes me as an abuse of the process. When you file a lawsuit, you have to demonstrate that you have standing because of some adverse effect that specifically affects you. By that logic, Wolvereness shouldn't be able to use a third party's copyright to enforce a takedown. [1]: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftBukkit.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftB...
- DannyBee 12y ago
  This seems to be accurate, except for #4. It does not make their license "illegitimate". It's true that he can terminate his right to use the contributions (particularly if no CLA was signed granting rights), contrary to their assertion that he can't because he knew what the licensing was. He can also sue for copyright infringement in previous versions. But that's it. At least in the US, the only one who could sue for copyright infringement is a copyright holder. That means, in this case, the folks who own copyright to CraftBukkit. Right now that includes him. They could remove his contributions, but that would not put them in compliance for the versions already distributed, and they could be sued for those. (For the curious, Breach of contract wise, third party beneficiary arguments around the GPL have repeatedly failed, AFAIK, so others trying to get source as beneficiaries have not succeeded).
  - teraflop 12y ago
    Yeah, to be clear, I'm not arguing the validity of these positions, and #4 is the part I'm most suspicious of.
  - Danieru 12y ago
    Just to be clear, if they did remove his contributions they must also make so none of the left over code is a derivative work. That would be a task beyond even a security audit. Mojang is not in a very business friendly situation right now. The only 100% not-lawsuit-libel approach is to either open source minecraft or rewrite the entire thing. They are still open to lawsuits related to the existing distributions but the traditional settlement is a combination of stopping to infringe and medium cash payment.
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      Yes. This is why, when folks say "CLA's are not necessary, you'd just remove the code" (like bradley kuhn recently did), i think they are very very wrong :)
- tedks 12y ago
  The GPL states that any derivative work created by combining the GPL'd work and another work must be licensed under a GPL-compatible license. Violating any clause of the GPL revokes your copy of the license. So if I'm a company that distributes GPL'd binaries without providing corresponding source (a legal term in the GPL that means the preferred version of the source that a developer would edit, so decompiled code does NOT satisfy the license), I lose that license and am violating the copyright of the original author. In this case, Wolvereness' code has been incorporated into a derivative work, with other code (the Mojang decompilation) that isn't licensed compatibly with the GPL. Note that the form of the copyrighted work (the Mojang Minecraft server) is irrelevant. Mojang's copyrighted work is there, whether it's decompiled or in binary form or in any other form. The work is the same, much in the same way a vinyl record, a digital file, and a live performance all can contain the same copyrighted work. I don't think this is weird at all; this is a very straightforward case of GPL incompatibility. If Wolvereness wanted to include an exception for linking to the Mojang server, he could have done so using the infrastructure in the GPLv3, or with a special exception in the GPLv2. Mojang has definitely violated the GPL, and as such they have no claim to Wolvereness's license. Wolvereness is the party with standing here.
  - tzs 12y ago
    Didn't he implicitly include a GPL exception when he contributed his GPL code to a project that was not GPL? If I'm understanding this correctly, CraftBukkit purports to be GPL, but includes disassembled, deobfuscated code that they did not own and was not available under a GPL compatible license.
    - tedks 12y ago
      No. There's no such thing as an "implicit" GPL exception. You're right that the original CraftBukkit project equally violated the GPL, but now that Mojang is distributing it, they're the ones liable for the violation.
      - tzs 12y ago
        > No. There's no such thing as an "implicit" GPL exception. You don't think a court would use some equitable doctrine such as estoppel to find that if I explicitly contribute my code to a project with the intent that they include it and distribute it, I am giving them whatever licenses is necessary to allow that?
ObviousScience 12y ago
This is a good summary. A few relevant facts about the political landscape involved: Bukkit is used by a large number of Minecraft fans to run servers, due to the availability of plugins and other improvements in the modded server. The developer in question contributed significantly to Bukkit, and has stated that without the full Bukkit product being open sourced (including the base Minecraft binary it's based around), it's a copyright violation to be using his contribution. This is legal, because of the nature of his code licensing, however, it is not a demand that the Bukkit team can comply with, as they don't hold the original Minecraft code. As such, their only option is to comply with the take down (and not use that code) until such time as Mojang releases the source to the Minecraft code that Bukkit uses. Mojang is under no obligation to do so, because they're not using any of the dev in question's code, as he only contributed to Bukkit. However, Mojang risk upsetting a large portion of their tech savvy and more active user base (including YouTubers and streams), because relying on Bukkit servers is common in those circles.
shawn-furyan 12y ago
One piece I think you're missing in this description is that Mojang aqui-hired[1] part of the Bukkit team but left Wolverness (the DMCA takedown originator) out. Wolverness had contributed 10s of thousands of lines of code to the project. So Wolverness isn't just using the popularity of Bukkit as leverage. Rather, Mojang is redistributing his code without having sought his permission. Of course, Bukkit itself was a derivative work of the Minecraft Server (the decompiled java bytecode) in violation of that piece of software's license, so the whole matter seems to be a tangle of license violations. In any case, Mojang is (or WAS, rather) distributing Wolverness's copyrighted code without his permission, and so are apparently in violation of his copy rights. I think that's where the leverage comes in. Wolverness seems to be hoping that it will be easier for Mojang to relicense and release Minecraft code to make it compatible with his bukkit code than to work around his code. [1] Reportedly. I've seen various, partially contradictory characterizations of how this happened, but there seems to have been at least some sort business deal between Mojang, and a subset of the Bukkit team not including Wolverness [edit: added footnote]
- XorNot 12y ago
  The issue of license violation is that someone had to claim damages. Mojang could have, but didn't - and you could argue in a court benefited greatly from this state of affairs (selling Minecraft licenses). The fact that Mojang now wants to distribute GPL code without providing full source would, I suspect, stand badly against that since a claim of license violation has been made now. Generally, you can't ignore copyright by yelling "two wrongs make a right".
  - shawn-furyan 12y ago
    Well, yeah, I agree. I'm not saying that Mojang hasn't likely been willfully ignoring the license violation, just that Bukkit seems to infringe on the letter of the official Minecraft Server license. And yeah, I don't think that that has any bearing on the copyright claim. Incidentally, the link has been changed since I began commenting. I find this assertion from the now-linked post to be odd: "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." This doesn't really address the primary charge from Wolverness, to paraphrase, that essentially the bukkit and related projects are distributing code incompatible with its license and therefore are not permitted to distribute the copyrighted code contained in the bukkit project without express permission. If the license for the code is not adhered to, then you don't have permission to distribute the copyrighted material... So one party is saying that the license was broken, and the other party responds by saying that there was a license. That's kind of a non sequitur.

teraflop 12y ago

Looking at the actual DMCA request [1], it's definitely weird. The argument seems to be that: * Wolvereness's contributions to CraftBukkit are licensed under the GPL, and therefore may only be redistributed on that license * CraftBukkit itself is released under the GPL * ...but Wolvereness claims that CraftBukkit includes Mojang's Minecraft server, which is proprietary (apparently this is disputed by Mojang themselves, though) * Therefore CraftBukkit's GPL license is illegitimate, and the CraftBukkit developers' right to use Wolvereness's contributions is terminated. Even if the factual claims in the DMCA takedown are correct (which is hard to verify now that the repository is offline), it strikes me as an abuse of the process. When you file a lawsuit, you have to demonstrate that you have standing because of some adverse effect that specifically affects you. By that logic, Wolvereness shouldn't be able to use a third party's copyright to enforce a takedown. [1]: https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftBukkit.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-09-05-CraftB...

DannyBee 12y ago
This seems to be accurate, except for #4. It does not make their license "illegitimate". It's true that he can terminate his right to use the contributions (particularly if no CLA was signed granting rights), contrary to their assertion that he can't because he knew what the licensing was. He can also sue for copyright infringement in previous versions. But that's it. At least in the US, the only one who could sue for copyright infringement is a copyright holder. That means, in this case, the folks who own copyright to CraftBukkit. Right now that includes him. They could remove his contributions, but that would not put them in compliance for the versions already distributed, and they could be sued for those. (For the curious, Breach of contract wise, third party beneficiary arguments around the GPL have repeatedly failed, AFAIK, so others trying to get source as beneficiaries have not succeeded).
- teraflop 12y ago
  Yeah, to be clear, I'm not arguing the validity of these positions, and #4 is the part I'm most suspicious of.
- Danieru 12y ago
  Just to be clear, if they did remove his contributions they must also make so none of the left over code is a derivative work. That would be a task beyond even a security audit. Mojang is not in a very business friendly situation right now. The only 100% not-lawsuit-libel approach is to either open source minecraft or rewrite the entire thing. They are still open to lawsuits related to the existing distributions but the traditional settlement is a combination of stopping to infringe and medium cash payment.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Yes. This is why, when folks say "CLA's are not necessary, you'd just remove the code" (like bradley kuhn recently did), i think they are very very wrong :)
tedks 12y ago
The GPL states that any derivative work created by combining the GPL'd work and another work must be licensed under a GPL-compatible license. Violating any clause of the GPL revokes your copy of the license. So if I'm a company that distributes GPL'd binaries without providing corresponding source (a legal term in the GPL that means the preferred version of the source that a developer would edit, so decompiled code does NOT satisfy the license), I lose that license and am violating the copyright of the original author. In this case, Wolvereness' code has been incorporated into a derivative work, with other code (the Mojang decompilation) that isn't licensed compatibly with the GPL. Note that the form of the copyrighted work (the Mojang Minecraft server) is irrelevant. Mojang's copyrighted work is there, whether it's decompiled or in binary form or in any other form. The work is the same, much in the same way a vinyl record, a digital file, and a live performance all can contain the same copyrighted work. I don't think this is weird at all; this is a very straightforward case of GPL incompatibility. If Wolvereness wanted to include an exception for linking to the Mojang server, he could have done so using the infrastructure in the GPLv3, or with a special exception in the GPLv2. Mojang has definitely violated the GPL, and as such they have no claim to Wolvereness's license. Wolvereness is the party with standing here.
- tzs 12y ago
  Didn't he implicitly include a GPL exception when he contributed his GPL code to a project that was not GPL? If I'm understanding this correctly, CraftBukkit purports to be GPL, but includes disassembled, deobfuscated code that they did not own and was not available under a GPL compatible license.
  - tedks 12y ago
    No. There's no such thing as an "implicit" GPL exception. You're right that the original CraftBukkit project equally violated the GPL, but now that Mojang is distributing it, they're the ones liable for the violation.
    - tzs 12y ago
      > No. There's no such thing as an "implicit" GPL exception. You don't think a court would use some equitable doctrine such as estoppel to find that if I explicitly contribute my code to a project with the intent that they include it and distribute it, I am giving them whatever licenses is necessary to allow that?

ObviousScience 12y ago

This is a good summary. A few relevant facts about the political landscape involved: Bukkit is used by a large number of Minecraft fans to run servers, due to the availability of plugins and other improvements in the modded server. The developer in question contributed significantly to Bukkit, and has stated that without the full Bukkit product being open sourced (including the base Minecraft binary it's based around), it's a copyright violation to be using his contribution. This is legal, because of the nature of his code licensing, however, it is not a demand that the Bukkit team can comply with, as they don't hold the original Minecraft code. As such, their only option is to comply with the take down (and not use that code) until such time as Mojang releases the source to the Minecraft code that Bukkit uses. Mojang is under no obligation to do so, because they're not using any of the dev in question's code, as he only contributed to Bukkit. However, Mojang risk upsetting a large portion of their tech savvy and more active user base (including YouTubers and streams), because relying on Bukkit servers is common in those circles.

shawn-furyan 12y ago

One piece I think you're missing in this description is that Mojang aqui-hired[1] part of the Bukkit team but left Wolverness (the DMCA takedown originator) out. Wolverness had contributed 10s of thousands of lines of code to the project. So Wolverness isn't just using the popularity of Bukkit as leverage. Rather, Mojang is redistributing his code without having sought his permission. Of course, Bukkit itself was a derivative work of the Minecraft Server (the decompiled java bytecode) in violation of that piece of software's license, so the whole matter seems to be a tangle of license violations. In any case, Mojang is (or WAS, rather) distributing Wolverness's copyrighted code without his permission, and so are apparently in violation of his copy rights. I think that's where the leverage comes in. Wolverness seems to be hoping that it will be easier for Mojang to relicense and release Minecraft code to make it compatible with his bukkit code than to work around his code. [1] Reportedly. I've seen various, partially contradictory characterizations of how this happened, but there seems to have been at least some sort business deal between Mojang, and a subset of the Bukkit team not including Wolverness [edit: added footnote]

XorNot 12y ago
The issue of license violation is that someone had to claim damages. Mojang could have, but didn't - and you could argue in a court benefited greatly from this state of affairs (selling Minecraft licenses). The fact that Mojang now wants to distribute GPL code without providing full source would, I suspect, stand badly against that since a claim of license violation has been made now. Generally, you can't ignore copyright by yelling "two wrongs make a right".
- shawn-furyan 12y ago
  Well, yeah, I agree. I'm not saying that Mojang hasn't likely been willfully ignoring the license violation, just that Bukkit seems to infringe on the letter of the official Minecraft Server license. And yeah, I don't think that that has any bearing on the copyright claim. Incidentally, the link has been changed since I began commenting. I find this assertion from the now-linked post to be odd: "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." This doesn't really address the primary charge from Wolverness, to paraphrase, that essentially the bukkit and related projects are distributing code incompatible with its license and therefore are not permitted to distribute the copyrighted code contained in the bukkit project without express permission. If the license for the code is not adhered to, then you don't have permission to distribute the copyrighted material... So one party is saying that the license was broken, and the other party responds by saying that there was a license. That's kind of a non sequitur.