A meeting with Mojang Specifications

Discussion in 'Bukkit News' started by EvilSeph, Jan 20, 2011.

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  1. Offline

    EvilSeph

    On Wednesday morning, as I'm sure most of you already know, the Bukkit team had a meeting with Mojang Specifications regarding their popular game, Minecraft. Going into the meeting, we were hoping to tackle the licensing issue right out of the door. Unfortunately, due to some people being unable to make it, it turned out to be a different type of meeting than we had intended.

    With only the developers of Minecraft able to attend, the meeting quickly turned into a technical discussion about what ideas we all had for Minecraft, how modding should work and so on. As we learned a lot from this meeting, we felt we should share some of the points with you. However, please understand that absolutely nothing said in the meeting is set in stone or final and can change at any time.

    So, here's what we learned:
    • Modding support will likely start as server-side only at first, then later is hoping to expand to the client-side
    • Single player is most likely going to be changed to run through a local server (this is also to enable modding)
    • They are hoping to make texture modification easier, without having to modify the client
    • They like what we're doing but need to provide us with a better alternative to the way we're doing it
    Some ideas they're considering:
    • Generic gui support
    • Server -> client communication to allow popping up an interface, etc
    • Being able to tell clients to follow different rules, like physics
    • Giving modders the ability to (make signs) show text
    While we did not have time to address our licensing issues, we believe we can honestly say that this meeting was just the beginning of a long-term relationship with Mojang Specifications. Nonetheless, we're hoping to contact Mojang Specifications specifically about our licensing issues soon.
     
  2. Offline

    EmVee

    Hope these ideas develop into more than past ideas have.

    All in all, this sounds very promising. I've personally got no problem with waiting for a long-term solution that's 100% better than the immediate possibilities.
     
  3. Offline

    SonKevin

    This thread really makes me question the intelligence of this community.
     
  4. Offline

    Afforess

    Because it was held in such high esteem before?

    Come on now, this is the INTERNET we are talking about here. It's not like there is an exam to get on. ;)
     
  5. Offline

    Adam Hermiston

    So... in other words we won't be getting bukkit for a couple months... Time to use McAdmin till then -.-
     
  6. Offline

    pagangeek

    I'm glad the meeting went well!
    Here's hoping the licensing issues get sorted smoothly and we can all look forward to the next big thing!
     
  7. Offline

    SAMDAN

    Come on guys. We aren't paying them. They need time to have a life. So let them. if they don't get it out for months, so be it.
     
  8. Offline

    SonKevin

    The whole project seemed too lofty to begin with. Not to mention that the community doesn't understand that Notch just can't say yes to whatever he feels like and who even says that he wants to say yes? I don't think Bukkit will see the light of day for months. The hMod vs Bukkit thing is going to kill this part of the modding community.
     
  9. Offline

    Afforess

    Can't disagree more. First, this project doesn't seem lofty - it's been fairly pragmatic to begin with, and it's already loads better than hMod, even with the state it is in.

    Second, there is no hMod vs Bukkit. The people who made hMod happen are the same people making Bukkit happen. kMod is like the retarded second cousin of hMod, and will probably not see the light of day after the next MC update.

    And Notch is the founder, and thus principal shareholder in Mojang AB, so he got an idea into his head, he could force everyone to stand behind it, consequences be damned.
     
  10. Offline

    barghest

    Gotta kinda suck being seemingly the only one going "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" to the trolls and general malcontents who seem to genuinely want to troll on this issue just because... it's new? I've never seen anything like it. I firmly support your "harsher posting standards." My hypothesis: Everyone's favorite servers running hMod have been taken down pending anti-griefing support in Bukkit, so a lot of ornery pubescents have significantly more free time to troll than usual.

    ON-topic: I've been thinking about that last bit, today - if Notch said "Hey, law guys. You know who has you on retainer? A guy named Markus effing Persson. What Mister Pays-You says, is that the copyright concerns over this particular type of derivative work need to be handled, and not by forbidding the modding altogether. I'm OKing this project, so push the papers until it's legit." - he could just do that. It's interesting that he hasn't just done it. Could simply be that he's in no hurry.

    But it's fairly obvious that he wants to permit mods of this type, taking his actions and the actions of his company as a whole into account. I do like to theorize, that's true, but it seems like a pretty good bet that the Bukkit-Mojang meeting is not gonna result, in the end, with a C&D for the Bukkit crew. After all, they didn't do the meeting without Notch's approval.
     
  11. Offline

    Lodran

    Notch can deal with the copyright issues by licensing the server source to the bukkit team - but licenses take time and money (i.e. lawyers) to write. My guess is that it didn't come up because Notch has more urgent issues to attend to, such as getting the login servers to quit pissing his customers off.
     
  12. Offline

    Raphfrk

    They will then ask him why he is paying them money to give him advice if he is going to ignore it. The whole point of getting legal advice is to use that legal advice.

    He has probably told them what he wants to happen and then they have to figure out the best way to achieve it.

    He may have said that he wants to allow modding but not in a way that he loses control of his IP. If he says that anyone can just simply use the server code, than that could cause problems down the line.

    His comments in the past are that he views the client as his key piece of IP. That is what he makes money from.

    They said that they plan to shift to a unified platform for single/multi-player. The single player client will effectively be a client + a mini-server. This means that the server code will be more tightly connected to the client.
     
  13. Offline

    GGreenBass

    Actually, he totally could have done that already- it just still hasn't happened yet because the legal guys need to see the Bukkit guys in a meeting first to discuss the basics of the liscensing.
    They ARE legal guys, you know. They can't just wave a wand and make things happen lol- they have to go through strict regulations and whatnot :p
     
  14. Offline

    4am

    Yeah, but it sounds like you (and some others who post here) are afraid that they're going to sit down with the legal guys and they're going to say "WHOA! You mean you want to MOD the game?! NOPE! Pack up shop and shut down, guys, or we'll even sue your grandmothers."

    Make no mistake about it: Mojang. Is. Marcus. Perrson. The guy is the founder, the owner, etc. He put other people in charge to run the show, yes, but he can still have the final say, and if he doesn't like the direction his legal guys are pushing him, he can always find new legal guys. And, so far, he seems to be interested in what we've got going here. If a large portion of your 1 million paying customers are telling you they want a certain feature, then you're likely to want to listen.

    Also, the legal guys aren't there to tell everyone "no" to everything, you know. They just want to be sure that no one can, in the future, say "you gave away your rights to Minecraft because I am allowed to change it", or "this isn't Minecraft because it is modded, and now that it's RipoffCraft I can sell it as my own game and you cannot stop me". Those are both bad situations, and you KNOW someone somewhere would try it.

    Now, of course the Bukkit team never would, but if Mojang just LETS the Bukkit team distribute server code without some kind of agreement, that basically opens up the door for ANYONE to do it, so someone else can make a mod and start SELLING the server on their OWN. Put together the "this derivative work is my own creation" and "distributing Mojang's code is legal based on the precedent of Mojang allowing others to do it without recourse", and someone might just get away with it.

    When you own the copyright to something (even when it's open source!) you must be very careful how you allow its use, or you can easily lose your rights. This is why copyright isn't always easy to deal with, and most companies would rather not even try.

    So legal and the devs at Mojang need to brainstorm carefully. They need to expose an interface into their software and create a license that specifically states that you're plugging into their software and not "creating a derivative work" by doing so, and that Mojang retains all rights to their game server, despite alterations you make.

    International distribution is also a concern and the differing laws of territories worldwide must be considered.

    They can also specially license the server to the Bukkit team for distribution as part of the mod, and as long as that is stated in an EULA to Bukkit that they have specific permission to use the software in such a manner, it's fine. This, however, is where GPL issues come up - but I think if the server is packaged separately from the Bukkit code then the LGPL doesn't apply to the server and it can be closed source, as long as Bukkit is considered a "library" hooking into the minecraft server.
    --- merged: Jan 21, 2011 12:40 PM ---
    Can't this already be done? Or am I misunderstanding this point?
     
  15. Offline

    Chewi

    Finally, someone who knows what they're talking about.
     
  16. Offline

    4am

    FTFY, just in case you're referring to my post.[​IMG]
     
  17. Offline

    Abrupt

    you explained this beautifully 4am.
     
  18. Offline

    ray landers

    My wife and I did some online stuff back in the 80's and 90's.


    It started as something for just our own entertainment and through lucky coincidence blossomed into a situation where we had a large world map on the wall with THOUSANDS of pins in it where people were using her artwork.


    We never thought about copyrights till we found someone was using her work and claiming that they had done it themselves.


    We never asked for money for her work, although people did donate 10, 20 and sometimes “interesting” amounts of money to us.
    It was never about money for us and many people were using her artwork as part of high income endeavors.
    We were ok with it, and even a little flattered that people were making such uses of her art.


    What upset us was that someone had “taken”, “stolen” her artwork and put their name on it.


    So we got involved in copyrights and all the legal stuff that goes with it.


    We hated it.


    But it was important to us to protect what was valuable to us.


    Such may be the case here.
    Since minecraft is something worth stealing, it's something worth protecting.


    People are trying to take action to prevent losing something important to them.


    I find all the legal wrangling to be offensive and degrading.
    It is a set of unpleasant actions being taken to prevent unpleasantness in the future.


    I don't like it, you don't like it, and almost everyone involved in the process doesn't like it.


    However, [there always seems to be a however following certain statements like that one] it is something that needs to be done.


    This is reality, such that it is, and frequently we do unpleasant things for better times down the road.
     
  19. Offline

    skiingiggy

    First things first, be sure to use proper grammar when you're trying to make an argument, it looks a lot more professional and makes you believable. Second, you don't agree? So what, you're entitled to your opinion, but trying to say that everyone is wrong and not being able to back it up is worse.

    " If it wasn't for 3rd party plugins this game wouldn't be nowhere near as popular, I know for a fact that most of the people I know that play it and my team (blog and minecraft show as well as server workers) wouldn't play the game anymore if these admin tools and such wasn't in it."

    Really? Prove it! You have absolutely no way of doing so. Right now we're supposed to take your word for this, because you CAN'T prove it. In fact, just about everything game related shows otherwise. As of Beta, these things haven't all worked perfectly, and as of the latest build, stopped entirely under Hey0 not working, and yet sales continue to climb. That in and of itself contradicts your entire statement. The fact of the matter is, you're trying to convince people based entirely on your own, un-sourced opinions. And opinions, while a good asset to an argument, can't make an argument in it's own hold weight.

    "I would bet that everyone that posts on this forum would probably stop playing if not just barely play at all if it wasn't for these tools, Notch needs to realize that its the most important stuff about the game and treat it as such. And if I knew of a paid mod that would work right now, I would be all over it!"

    Again, making opinions and assumptions about things that aren't based on any sort of fact, but your opinion. Clearly, people on these forums are still playing the game, without these tools. Is it how it was before or perfect? Probably not, I used Hey0 as well. But we're still playing, and still enjoying. It's a game in beta, we all knew not everything would stay working exactly as it did. Get used to it, it's a risk you knowingly took when you bought the game in Beta. (Or even more so in Alpha, if like me that's when you purchased it). Second, Notch decides what's most important in his game, not you or the community. Though he IS listening to the community, and the meeting of which this was about proves that. The game client, the bugs, and things he and the team want to add are most important to the game, not support for mods and server mods. Although, again, this meeting would imply that they do have high value in it, and do plan proper support for it with time. Which means, eventually, you'll get your wish. Or maybe not, because you clearly aren't coding any of it yourself, and if you can't/won't code it, then something or someone may stop whatever it is you're waiting for and just leave you dead in the water anyway, exactly like what just happened with Heyo. Notch didn't say hey, Hey0 isn't allowed to work anymore. It stopped being updated. That could happen to ANYTHING.

    I'll wrap up my rant here. Basically, you're complaining about things that don't need to exist, and arguing with people based entirely on opinions backed by "fact' that really isn't fact and that you can't prove, which is a bad way to try and win an argument. I, on the other hand, presented decent logical arguments based on fact that can be proven. Sales going up - didn't they meet 1 million sales just recently? You bet all posters won't play? Other posts here say people are playing vanilla or with other wrappers (linked to even), and I play. That's wrong too. I'm sure I could rant more too, but I'll wrap it up here.
     
  20. Offline

    Obsidian

    Looks like decent progress. EvilSeph, I do think we'd all appreciate it though if you could bring up with the devs, the various performance issues that the servers encounter; the poor performance that we get in bandwidth, CPU, RAM, and disk I/O doesn't get enough attention as-is and should be taken head-on while the game is still in the earlier stages, so that the further refinements and bugfixes necessary have enough time to crop up and make their way into the game before the gold release.
     
  21. Let's see... people abusing flymod and duping lava all over the place is INTENDED? Griefing is more than needless destruction. We need protection from bug/hack abusers. I doubt Notch could have forseen this type of abuse. Many developers (Valve, for example) streamlines modding to make sure everybody can make what they want out of the game. They had the forsight to know that their unique product would be enjoyable in different ways to different people.

    I agree that the developers of Minecraft working together with Bukkit is great... Hopefully this collaboration leads to a stable release that is waterfalled from the developers. Maybe they'll drop a "heads up" to Bukkit before updates so they can have a bukkit update ready simultaneously! IMHO The wait for Bukkit would then be totally worth it.
     
  22. Offline

    distortednet

    Nice! its glad to see bukkit will actually have an "official" backing behind it...i have been running bukkit builds and updating builds when new plugins break and really, even though its super development, i have not had too many problems, mostly just random plugin issues, but nothing play-crippling. Support i would LOVE to see is threading (mine is running on a dell xeon 2u server, 2 xeon's hyperthreaded) which runs mc perfect, but could run better with cpu support :)

    Also i no longer trust mojang's ability to run an authentication server, so i ended up having to build my own (NO you cant use mine, and NO i wont tell you how...i just wanted to play on my server with online mode enabled, i paid for my game and this could most definatly be used to run pirated copies of the client to play on the server...im not about that, and because of it, it is too risky to let the public to use...IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME, BUY IT!)

    other than a few hiccups here and there with bukkit, no big deal, i hate seeing people that gripe bout it instead of contributing an actual bug report with the server or plugins they use, remember guys -- minecraft is BETA and bukkit isnt even ALPHA, expect bugs from both ends and BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP.
     
  23. Offline

    pp19dd

    For all those people who are fervently apologizing for Mojang breaking server modifications without regard for the multiplayer community, see this graph:

    [​IMG]

    This shows connected users (in red) on a PVP server I run. The flatlines are days-long periods of hMod being unusable after alpha/beta updates break modifications. You'll notice that people aren't interested in playing when that happens.

    In other words, this shows user interest. Users are interested in following:
    • Ability to /sethome and /home, and /warp to approved locations
    • Ability to protect their inventory (secure chests)
    • Ability to protect their houses from griefers (cuboid protect area)
    • Ability to stop fire spread and explosions from griefers
    The apologists who will say "just use a whitelist, lol" don't understand a thing about building a multiplayer community: whitelists are not the solution. People need to be able to join a server, experience its performance, notice its friendly community, and obey its rules that are enforced in part by technology.

    hMod is pretty much dead. I'd like to see bukkit fill its space without licensing delays.
     
  24. Offline

    EvilSeph

    Licensing isn't delaying anything. Bukkit is still being worked on while I work on the licensing issues.
     
  25. Offline

    Lodran




    If Licensing actually becomes an issue (i.e., the licensing issues are not resolved when Bukkit reaches a state where a stable release makes sense), the Bukkit team has another option.

    They can stop shipping un-obsfucated code with Bukkit, and add a de-obsfucation layer (hopefully automated) which maps the obsfucated namespace into a readable namespace.

    I'm not sure about Java, but the C Pre-processor could handle this with little or no impact to code performance. The nasty bit (that would have everyone foaming at the mouth) would be the amount of time needed to set something like this up.
     
  26. Offline

    BjarkeBS

    Okay, so if i get this right, the modding community is almost demanding to get a bukkit preview because hM0d got discontunied.

    i dont really understand why people think they have the command of volunteer programmers that does a (for what i know) good job at keeping bukkit up, fixing and keeping improving, and have the sight to see that they will be having a licens problem and have made contact to the creaters of Minecraft, not only have the made a contact to a company that have no need in helping modders.

    Bukkit did get contact and a good talk with some of the creators, i really like that, exchanging ideas and trying to help each other is pretty rare. i really like what bukkit is doing and i will support them because i personally think they do a great job.

    Minecraft are doing good aswell, just by talking to the creators of bukkit, and hearing out their ideas and trying to fix problems they have encountered. and blaming the devolpers of minecraft for not caring about the modding part of a unfinish game is unfair and not real.

    I personally only have one thing too say, good work bukkit and minecraft, and shame on you modding community...
    if you dont want bukkit too stop, support up and stop demanding and complaining about things they cant do anything about, they said their handling it, let them.
     
  27. Offline

    LucidLethargy

    So... Mojang had a meeting, and the Bukkit team had nothing to do with it as they were not present? Am I understanding things correctly? If not, please do correct me.

    If I am not mistaken by your wording, should we be understanding that the Bukkit team just slide a little further down the fail trail?
    (The beginning of the walk started with the "impossible" task of reviving hmod, which has recently been revived as "kmod" by a single other enthusiast)

    I have just about completely lost faith in this project. Give me and the others something to hold on to already, because so far all we have seen from this side of the playing field is a whole lot of promises, and absolutely nothing else. I think licensing, for instance, is the least of your worries... because none of that will matter if the developers of plugins wise up to the fact another wrapper may soon take your place. On top of this, Notch would never gut your project as he himself has put off his own legal statements, and in general gutting the most popular WORKING mod for HIS game would be a suicidal move for Mojang. If I am missing something, and I'm sure someone will say I am, please explain in detail where I am wrong and how.
     
  28. Offline

    Selbram

    Umm, I have no idea what fairy tale you were reading, but it was bukkit devs and minecraft devs talking... We were hoping to have some legal presence there to address the licensing concerns. Instead they chatted about dev stuff. Learn to read.
     
  29. Offline

    LucidLethargy

    I feel so much better about this project knowing that the support of it responds to community concerns with brash statements of personal attack. You have proven my concerns all too well by showing everyone in a public place that you are incapable of showing the temperament and patience required by such a massive (and to many of us, important) project.

    To address your claim, however, the "fairy tail" I was reading, and have since re-read was the topic of this thread. It states the following, and I quote:
    This tells me the following (broken up by sentence: )
    1) On Wendesday morning there was some sort of meeting between Bukkit and Mojang
    2) The Bukkit team hoped to discuss modding with Mojang first thing
    3) "some people" did not make it, and the meeting took a different direction
    (new paragraph)
    1) Only the developers of Minecraft attended, and the meeting took a different direction than was ideal for the progresion of the Bukkit project (for unknown reasons)
    (i'll stop there)

    I do hope I answered your statement, please let me know if you have any questions.
     
  30. Offline

    BjarkeBS

    Personal attacks are only needed towards persons that dont read the full thread and ask question that has been answered before in here, you could read back and find it :) until then, your post are ignored in my view.
     
  31. Offline

    Selbram

    "I find your lack of faith disturbing." - Darth Vader

    Sorry, no personal attacks were intended. I could not figure out how we went from having a meeting with Mojang to "the Bukkit team had nothing to do with it as they were not present?". Clearly there was a meeting. Bukkit Devs and Mojang Devs were in it. The talked about stuff.

    The brashness comes from defending ourselves from people who want to attack us because they have the mistaken belief that we can somehow magically make this all work in one day. From the sounds of your statements that is not what you meant, but your wording could have been better.
     
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