11-08-2014, 04:20 AM
Okay, I just finished reading all of the GPL and lookin up some DCMA stuff. Yes, you were partially right, but there was one last thing that I was trying to figure out in the DMCA. The reason why it is so difficult to understand is because as I said before, Bukkit attacked Bukkit on this one. He claimed that Bukkit was violating his license by distributing minecraft code with his open source code. Therefore he DMCA'd any distribution of his code. I don't know why he did this, but he did. Mojang won't revoke it because if they do, then it is an official declaration that the server code is open source. Mojang also won't endorse it because that makes them the bad guy. But the thing that really matters is the DMCA context. In reality, the DMCA can only apply to his code because only the copyright holder may issue a DMCA. This is a good thing.
It seems like you might not need to do as much work as you thought. If you remove the code that he claimed, you can leave the decomipled server code, or maybe even use a more recent server code (like... oh... the 1.8 server I'm going to decompile tomorrow for reference purposes) because his DMCA will no longer apply to you. Then all that you, me, and anyone else willing to to contribute to Project Fukkit will need to do is rewrite the portions that he claimed. These seem to be mostly just little things (like code comments and random semantics) and the plugin loader. I haven't gone through it all and you said you already have your own plugin loader, so at the moment, it looks like you might already be more than 3/4 of the way done. Then all you need is the update to 1.8, which I think you said has just begun.
You can also just not use CraftBukkit code at all, but you can still use the Minecraft Server code.
Obviously, you are still at risk from a DMCA against ChiBukkit, but, I get the feeling that the rest of the Bukkit developers are going to be a bit more cautious about calling a DMCA, but I wouldn't advise going straight over to Bukkit.org and announcing that you are the savior of their people.
Also, I guess he pegged spigot as well, which (as far as I know) means that like 95% of all Minecraft servers are under this DMCA.
It seems like you might not need to do as much work as you thought. If you remove the code that he claimed, you can leave the decomipled server code, or maybe even use a more recent server code (like... oh... the 1.8 server I'm going to decompile tomorrow for reference purposes) because his DMCA will no longer apply to you. Then all that you, me, and anyone else willing to to contribute to Project Fukkit will need to do is rewrite the portions that he claimed. These seem to be mostly just little things (like code comments and random semantics) and the plugin loader. I haven't gone through it all and you said you already have your own plugin loader, so at the moment, it looks like you might already be more than 3/4 of the way done. Then all you need is the update to 1.8, which I think you said has just begun.
You can also just not use CraftBukkit code at all, but you can still use the Minecraft Server code.
Obviously, you are still at risk from a DMCA against ChiBukkit, but, I get the feeling that the rest of the Bukkit developers are going to be a bit more cautious about calling a DMCA, but I wouldn't advise going straight over to Bukkit.org and announcing that you are the savior of their people.
Also, I guess he pegged spigot as well, which (as far as I know) means that like 95% of all Minecraft servers are under this DMCA.