Paid Plugins

Plugins Plugin Discussion
1

The question is simple, should we allow people to sell plugins on the Sponge Dev site ?
Spigotmc.org does it and I think it is fair because developers spend alot of time on plugins and sometimes they just want to earn some money.

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It’s a cool idea, but imho it does not fit Sponge, as Sponge is a free, community-driven project.
Edit: Maybe allow for a featured “donate” button on the project page/sidebar?

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From the EULA (With emphasis added by me):

Any tools you write for the Game from scratch belong to you. . Modifications to the Game (“Mods”) (including pre-run Mods and in-memory Mods) and plugins for the Game also belong to you and you can do whatever you want with them, as long as you don‘t sell them for money / try to make money from them. We have the final say on what constitutes a tool/mod/plugin and what doesn‘t.

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Ok, wait. What is a sponge plugin?
Is it a modification of Minecraft? - No
Is it a plugin for the Game? - Hmmm, not really. It’s a plugin for sponge, you don’t need Minecraft to run it.

It’s actually a plugin for a mod. You can not sell the mod (Sponge Server Mod). But the plugin is in no way connected to the mod, it’s only connected to the API.

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Well lets see:

YourPlugin uses Sponge, Sponge uses Forge, Forge uses MCP, MCP uses Minecraft. So YourPlugin = Indirect Mod.

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This post is ignoring the EULA replys.

I think its a good idea however if they do include it, then you will find some developers make ‘Alternatives’ to your Paid plugin. most users like ‘Free’ stuff, so they go for the alternative,

Although my point was not for paid plugins, I would like to see it, however, I believe they should add a donate button. If EULA allows it

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My stance the whole time has been any theoretical Sponge plugin directory should only list open-source plugins with builds that can easily be traced back to the appropriate source release.

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YourPlugin uses SpongeAPI
MCP uses Minecraft, Forge uses Minecraft, SpongeMod uses Forge and SpongeAPI

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No, no paid plugins/mods

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Technically, Forge uses MCP and Minecraft.

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I really don’t like the idea of selling plugins/mods on top of a free platform, it just doesn’t feel right to me. A donation button for projects I would be more open to, although I’m not quite sure if the EULA permits it.

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Yes, but for your plugin is in no way connected to Forge.

You can also make a standalone Sponge server implementing Sponge API that does not use Forge/MCP/Minecraft, and run your plugin on it.

Sponge API is 100% free software with no connection to Mojang’s code, you could even sell the API.

Just think about it:
A mega-awesome server sells particle effects and VIP server access.
So why not sell a mega-awesome plugin?

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Tell me how easily you can acquire a legal team that can stand stand up to Microsoft for a few months and not bankrupt you.
If you can go bring up the discussion with them.
If you can’t then stop cause you won’t win that fight and we like our $$$

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15

Uh, yes you do. No one makes plugins just to look at a command line output of their plugins enabling and disabling.

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I can just make my own open-source game, name it MineTest, and make it compatible with the Sponge API.

Whatever to stoip this discussion: I agree with you, we should not sell our plugins on this site.

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@instanceof <- The best way to answer it.

Now I’m not absolutely positive about anything, but making money off a plugin for Sponge WOULD be against the Minecraft EULA. However, I think that you can probably be paid for taking time away from your own life to write someone else a plugin.

In essence, the model that I theoretically setup above is that rather than be paid to make something that is essentially for Minecraft, you’re being paid for your time. One could also that you’re being paid for time spent on Minecraft, which could indirectly mean making $$$ off of Minecraft.

I personally wouldn’t, simply because Mojang -> Minecraft is now Microsoft -> Mojang -> Minecraft, which means exponentially higher paid lawyers that will make you bury yourself in legal fees.

@boformer, Minetest is using C++ and Lua, which makes using the Sponge API very hard.

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The name minetest was just an example. You could also name it MySuperMiningGame :wink:

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I would say no that we should allow people to sell plugins because it sort’ve will kill the open-source sort’ve feature that sponge and the community features.

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Uh, no you can’t. Mojang isn’t going after the guys who make Minetest, but they could do it (considering how many App Store clones of Minecraft exist, it’s unlikely but still not worth the risk). Know that anyone can sue anybody for anything. Don’t try to think that you can find loopholes around these big companies, especially Microsoft once they get full ownership.