Section 8 of the GPL3 expresses the provisions of license termination. Making an announcement of a notification signifies a reasonable one.
— Wesley Wolfe (@wolvereness) November 28, 2014
So @md__5, check your mail for the next one. I still intend to enforce my copyright, and authorizing derivative works is my exclusive right.
— Wesley Wolfe (@wolvereness) November 28, 2014
No really liking where this is going, what is everyone’s opinion on this?
As long as Sponge is safe, I couldn’t care less to be frank.
How can he DMCA Spigot if they are not distributing his code…
For me I care a bit. Sponge may be coming but at the speed its coming it wont be properly usable till at least some time next year i’m guessing, spigot was the only thing servers really had to update to at this time and from what it seems like we will be stuck on 1.7 for a good while longer. (At least most of us that is)
@bdubz4552 from what it seems like they are still distributing over 7000 lines of his code i think
lines author
22151 Thinkofdeath
7440 Wesley Wolfe
3351 Travis Watkins
2803 Dinnerbone
2242 author Erik Broes
1776 Celtic Minstrel
1755 mbax
1410 EvilSeph
1132 feildmaster
1041 rmichela
989 t00thpick1
That’s something i found on the reddit thread that i found this out from.
They’re distributing his code in their patches? How is that supposed to work?
I don’t know all the mumbo jumbo that goes into what they did to make it work, although i can’t really say i’m going to side with wolve on this.
Basically heres how it’s he can DMCA.
I think that reddit thread only shows how much they used to have. Spigot tried getting around this through ways of patching. However the licence for Bukkit means all works, or derivatives. Meaning any project, or project that has been modified (even one removing the code), can be DMCA’d. Because Spigot is a derivative of Bukkit, and since Wesley developed some lines in Bukkit He can effectively DMCA any Bukkit spinoff.
But Sport Bukkit is still up
what a dick
@wolvereness
So if I contributed a line of code to Bukkit, I could then rightfully DMCA any Bukkit derivative, even though that comment is not present at all in the derivatives? That’s some crap.
I went back and tried to figure out why. It looks like he is trying to cover his ass at least judging by https://forums.bukkit.org/threads/wolvereness-got-letter-from-mojangs-attorney.316007/
If that is the case then I am not so sure about this being amoral anymore.
People are saying Spigot is not distributing his code, but they have a CraftBukkit repo up with his original commits, as seen here and for example b3e83b0
So I feel like Wolvereness is not very happy with Spigot trying to get around his copyright.
I am not entirly sure that the are “arround” the copyright. Thats still a bukkit implementation that uses the minecraft code directly. Altrough they aren’t distributing a jar. They have made a tool that distributes the jar and that is easy to use for people.
The main problem is this sentence in the licence:
You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly
provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or
modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under
this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third
paragraph of section 11).
What basicly means (if I understand it proberly). That it doesn’t matter how you distribute it, it always will be illigal. So providing a tool that builds craftbukkit* is illigal in all terms.
* with craftbukkit I mean a jar that contains non-opensource code, like minecraft.
The only way I see you can get arround it. Is having bukkit, minecraft and a loader/launcher jar in 1 folder.
Sportbukkit patches Bukkit, basically the same method that md5 used to circumvent the DMCA.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
No they haven’t. I don’t see a Spigot or CB jar, or, for that matter, Minecraft Server binaries anywhere. They made a tool that fetches the Spigot, CB and Bukkit code, along with a copy of the build tools that are needed to integrate them and create a local version of CB.
@LordLambda - not quite. If the non-GPL compliant code is stripped out, and thus the resulting base is fully GPL, he can’t DMCA, as it grants an irrevocable license when used in a valid situation. That’s why Glowstone can’t be DMCA’d, by your arguement, he could. By that logic, I could DMCA Spigot because I provided 4 lines to CraftBukkit one time.
The GPL is essentially a distribution license, but all Spigot are trying to do is distribute the GPL’d source code and patches + tools such that you can build the jar yourself. That is technically not distributing Spigot or CraftBukkit with the Minecraft Server - which is how the Spigot guys will argue they are in compliance. The idea is that all that is provided (that is, they stuff they distribute) is GPL compliant code to your computer, you fetch the server jar yourself (via the tool, but that’s irrelavant here), and then YOU combine the code. (FWIW, FML/Forge follows a similar tack, you only ever download Forge’s changes, and the installer fetches the already present on your computer minecraft jar, or downloads the server software from the Mojang site.) As long as you don’t distribute the result, then you aren’t breaking the GPL - it explcitly allows you to use your own code in private without having to distribute the result, and as it isn’t AGPL, as server software that users don’t download - just connect to.
That being said, the CB/Spigot patches technically contain small amounts of nms code in them. That in itself is possibly enough to violate the GPL - distributing Spigot like that could very well be risky. Don’t quote me on this though - distributing patches might be fine - but I’m wary of it. Don’t get me wrong, I like Spigot, I think it’s an interesting project with novel ideas on how to try to improve performance, and Bukkit should have a place in the modding community, but Bukkit is poison now unfortunately. I’m glad that there are serveral communities that have stepped up to the plate to try to find/create a replacement.
All I can say is that I hope that this doesn’t go to court and destroy the Minecraft community further. I doubt that was really Wolvereness’s intention, and as @disconsented has suggested, there will be more to this than meets the eye. Wolvereness might not have been the friendliest person in the world, but I seriously don’t think he’d DMCA a project he’d worked on for years to help the community just for laughs. He clearly cared for the community, so to those of you who just want to throw insults at him, shame on you.
In light of the unknowns, the best thing we can do is just move on from Bukkit, and support all the modding communities, including Sponge, who are trying their hardest to provide us with a worthy replacement.
after attempting to compile Spigot, it appears the tool the give you paches Minecraft_server.jar with bukkit then craftbukkit then finally Spigot.
Why does he even care?
Didn’t say he does, All I said was it appears Spigot gave the minecraft source code away by applying bukkit, craftbukkit, and Spigot code patches to it.
I don’t think he can DMCA Spigot again, md_5 already consulted lawyers, I feel his new plan is safe for until Sponge comes and officially replaces Spigot.
I feel Spigot/Bukkit will be a thing of the past, like hMod.
Spigot does not distribute Minecraft Server jar file.
Instead, the BuildTool downloads the vanilla server jar and uses fern flower to decompile and do the patching.