It’s official, as of THIS COMMIT, SpongeForge is now in Beta! It’s been a long road since our First Commit was pushed by @Zidane to Github back in September 2014. Take it away, @lukegb:
The move to Beta means that we believe that SpongeForge is now stable enough to be usable in a server environment, as well as the API becoming far more stable than it has been over the past Alpha phase. There may still be breaking changes as we move towards Release, of course, but these will be far less frequent than they have been during the past Alpha phase.
To coincide with the release of SpongeForge Beta, we have decided to bump the SpongeAPI Version to 3.0.0, development is continuing in builds 3.0.1 and above.
If you’d like to keep up to date with Sponge, you can also follow our Twitter, Facebook and our Subreddit. You can also join us at #sponge, #spongedev and #spongedocs on irc.esper.net. You can also support Sponge through Patreon!
For those of you who are new to the Sponge Ecosystem, we have a great set of resources to help you get started!
[spoiler=Introduction to Sponge]
What Is Sponge?
Sponge API is a plugin API for Minecraft, built with performance in mind. It allows you to enhance your Minecraft experience by adding plugins to the base game. Sponge is being created by a global community, and its open-source nature means anyone can participate. Sponge is licensed under the MIT license - an extremely permissive open source license.
Most plugins developed with the Sponge API should work across several different versions of Minecraft without needing to be updated. This means that, for the most part, server owners do not need to worry about plugin incompatibilities. Additionally, Sponge keeps compatibility with future versions of Minecraft in mind.
We have two projects which utilize the Sponge API:
- SpongeForge, a coremod for Minecraft Forge, which is an existing Minecraft modding framework famous for spurring the Minecraft modding scene. Forge lacks a cross-version API, and this is where Sponge steps in. Sponge allows server owners to deploy Sponge plugins with ease, making server management easier.
- SpongeVanilla, a stand-alone implementation of the Sponge API, running on top of the vanilla Minecraft server. SpongeVanilla does not need or use Forge.
Players on servers running SpongeForge or SpongeVanilla do not need to install any client-side mods. They are able to join servers running Sponge using the vanilla Minecraft client provided by Mojang.
The Sponge API is not tied to any platform. This means that server owners can run Sponge plugins on any official implementation of the Sponge API. Sponge plugins should function the same, due to the common functionality of mixins.
##Who Is behind Sponge?
The project leaders are blood, gabizou and Zidane. We are trying to be very open with the team to ensure the project leaders do not end up “holding all of the keys.” Nonetheless, these three people make the final decisions to ensure the efficient operation of the project.
A full list of staff members is located at Staff.
Our developers are well-versed with Java, and many of them have worked with Minecraft for years and know the ins-and-outs of its mechanics. There are tons of very good developers working on the Sponge project, and it would be nearly impossible to list all of them!
If you’d like to learn more, please check out the Frequently Asked Questions and the rest of our Sponge Docs!
[/spoiler]
Downloads
SpongeForge Beta | SpongeVanilla Latest | SpongeAPI Beta 3.0.0
If you need help setting up Sponge, check out the Documentation here:
https://docs.spongepowered.org/en/server/getting-started/installation.html
[spoiler=Latest]
SpongeForge Latest | SpongeVanilla Latest | SpongeAPI Latest
Latest Builds are the bleeding edge of Sponge Development and can be experimental and/or unstable. If choosing to migrate existing worlds, WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING A BACKUP FIRST. Additionally, we recommend performing frequent backups of the server in order to minimize any potential damage caused by bugs.
Latest builds are meant to be used to test plugins in a development environment or to try out experimental features and/or bug fixes. If you want to ensure a stable server, please use the declared Beta builds instead. When we believe a particular build is stable enough for general use, we will promote it as a Beta build. We are not responsible for any permanent damage done to your server, software, and/or it’s data.
[/spoiler]
Introducing a new versioning scheme
Starting with Beta, we’ll switch the API versioning to SemVer. SemVer allows us to separate major additions, minor additions and patches. An example version would look like this: 3.2.4, with 3 being the major version, 2 the minor version and 4 the patch number.
Major Change: this breaks compatibility with older API versions and increases the major version number.
Feature Addition: this doesn’t break compatibility with previous API releases and increases the minor version number.
Patch: this just removes some unintended behavior (a “bug”), but doesn’t break plugins, if a patch requires a breaking change, the major version will get a bump, if not, only the patch number will increment.
This means that every time we break the API, the first number will be raised. Be aware that 3.x.y isn’t 100% compatible to 4.x.y. However 4.2.x is compatible to 4.1.x as long as the 2nd number is higher. The Patch number obviously isn’t relevant to determine compatibility.
Look to @Deamon to provide a more comprehensive outline of how versioning will be handled in the next few days.
State of Sponge Eight
State of Sponge VIII will be on January 2nd at 21:00 UTC, where we’ll be showing off all the cool things that Sponge Beta can do. With the explosion in new plugins that we’ve seen on the forums, get ready to see the creativity of the Sponge Community’s awesome Plugin Developers!
As always, we will be having a Q&A session, be sure to post any questions you have below, or tweet them to @SpongePowered the more questions you have, the better! There will be a demo server as usual, showing off as many features and plugins as we can sanely pack in together. The Sponge Community Server (demo.spongepowered.org) will be transformed for the event. Come try it out after SoS VIII and see for yourself how it works, we’d love for everyone to join us on it!
Join us at: Twitch
For those that missed it, we’ve uploaded the entire event for you!
Management accepts no responsibility for incidents involving FLARD in any form.
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