Sponge is really making me nervous

Sponge
3

I believe most of your reasons are unfounded and mostly due to lack of research.

  1. Bukkit is also a modded server, what’s your point? Are you scared of Forge? The Sponge implementation will use Forge for convenience, we could just as well have implemented it directly on top of the Minecraft source and lost hours and hours of development time. This has no connection to the Sponge API.
  2. Yes and no. Mods are not scary in themselves. Sponge is at the intersection of Bukkit and Forge, meaning it will both have Forge-like mods and Bukkit-like plugins. This is unavoidable because that is how Sponge is designed. However, you still need to do more research on this. On this very forum there is a thread where at least 400 developers have pledged to port their Bukkit plugins. Yes, BUKKIT plugins. And remember that as a server owner, you choose what sponge mods to include or not so this shouldn’t be an issue.
  3. See number 2. While sponge is a new API it is pretty similar to Bukkit and plugin porting will not be a big deal. There is active effort to build a bridge from Bukkit to Sponge as well, to reduce the effort needed in porting plugins. Sponge resolved that the best way to move forward is to construct a new API that can do what Forge and Bukkit can, and unfortunately this requires some redesigns. But this means that in the long run plugin/mod development will be easier because the API will be (arguably) better.
  4. I agree that Sponge is not very transparent, but you still need to do more research on this. There are people actively working on the API and implementation and are not just sk. And I assure you that we have not assembled an evil coalition of people bent on destroying the modding community. Running .eta in IRC will give an API release date in this month of November. I also recommend that you check the status updates.

I think this is mostly just fear about change and lack of research. Forge and Bukkit are a great projects and Sponge is a work in progress, but as a team we have every intention to continue both the Forge and Bukkit legacy in Sponge. I do agree that our biggest problem is lack of transparency, and I will personally promise to try and make Sponge more transparent. People are already very willing to have discussions in the public IRC channels, and I will try to expand the scope of discussion like this.

Please keep in mind that Sponge is an open-source project just like Bukkit and Forge and everyone can see the development and clone both repositories. This is in contrast to some projects like Husk and Rainbow which are currently closed-source, so Sponge has an advantage in transparency in this respect.

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