Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on September 11, 2014, 07:31:25 pm
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29158666
Nooooooooooooo!!!!!
Still only a rumour, but I hope it's not true, not because I believe that everything Microsoft touches turns to ****e, but because their business model is utterly incompatible with the way Minecraft is approached by its players.
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(http://mikekalar.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/do-not-want.jpg)
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not that minecraft was ever actually good
e: to further elaborate, Notch was a hilariously incompotent developer and although the current lead is better, it's still not in a state where I can say that it, without mods, is good. That's not to say that Microsoft buying Mojang will make things better or can't make it worse.
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Well, at least you clarified yourself.
The thing here is, like all games, it's down to a matter of personal preference. I play Minecraft heavily modded (using the Hatpack on Feed The Beast) and it does greatly improve the game, this is true.
I'm pretty sure that, unless Mojang get concessions, one of the first things Microsoft would do away with is Mod compatibility. They'd much rather release their own Mods as DLC as currently happens on the XBox. I have a suspicion one of the first things they would add to the game is a link to a marketplace to buy texture packs etc.
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Not sure that selling 50 Million copies == hilariously incompetent.
I personally have sunk some 300+ hours into vanilla minecraft.
Almost never played mods because the few times I did they invariably made the program very unstable.
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Yeah, clearly they did something very very right. And now Notch is being bought by the exact sum he previously said (two years ago) he would agree to. Everyone thought he was just kidding, or just making a very high number up in the vein of "I'll never be bought". Perhaps he was just being really honest in setting the price he was honestly expecting to sell Mojang.
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Maybe he'll fund Psychonauts 2 now
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Come on now, it can't be all bad that Mojang is getting M$'s big bucks behind it. Disclaimer: I am a Microsoft employee. That being said, I work for a division that was originally a startup that was bought out two years ago. Far as I can tell, things haven't changed much; most of the original employees are still here, the original founder/CEO is now the division GM, and they still do things like they did back in the day (for better AND for worse). Perhaps Mojang will get similar treatment; business as usual, just with a lot more $$$ to play around with.
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Well, at least you clarified yourself.
The thing here is, like all games, it's down to a matter of personal preference. I play Minecraft heavily modded (using the Hatpack on Feed The Beast) and it does greatly improve the game, this is true.
I'm pretty sure that, unless Mojang get concessions, one of the first things Microsoft would do away with is Mod compatibility. They'd much rather release their own Mods as DLC as currently happens on the XBox. I have a suspicion one of the first things they would add to the game is a link to a marketplace to buy texture packs etc.
Mojang have never been gracious towards the mod community. Need I remind you that Minecraft continues to this day to be distributed as an obfuscated .jar, which is actively antagonistic towards modding, and that despite promising a proper modding interface for three years Mojang have shown no inclination whatsoever towards delivering it; mods today are still built on the same foundation of unstable, brute-force hacks as they were at the beginning. I can also point to Bukkit, which has recently imploded thanks to Mojang's 'have modders fix our ****ty game for free' policy taking its toll.
I can't really see how Microsoft could be worse.
Yeah, clearly they did something very very right.
Lots and lots and lots of entertainment products have sold like hotcakes despite being of extremely poor artistic merit. Unless you're about to step forward and declare your love for Two and a Half Men, Transformers and the collected works of Seltzer and Friedberg I'd appreciate if you dropped this asinine line of reasoning.
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I, for one, would appreciate keeping this civil. There's literally no reason to be abrasive over opinions on Minecraft's quality as media.
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i actually DO like the transformers movies. :nervous:
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i actually DO like the transformers movies. :nervous:
I watched the first one and enjoyed it.
I know a family who Two and a Half Men, at least a few years ago anyway, was their favourite show which they would all watch together as a family. They would all be doing their separate thing, but when I was there and that show came on, everything stopped and they would all emerge from wherever they were to sit down and watch it together, and I think it was really good that they all did that as a family.
If someone else has a problem with that, that's their problem, not mine, yours, or that family's.
Entertainment is subjective.
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I, for one, would appreciate keeping this civil. There's literally no reason to be abrasive over opinions on Minecraft's quality as media.
This. I also would prefer it if people stopped trying to drag every single thread into an argument.
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Yeah, clearly they did something very very right.
Lots and lots and lots of entertainment products have sold like hotcakes despite being of extremely poor artistic merit. Unless you're about to step forward and declare your love for Two and a Half Men, Transformers and the collected works of Seltzer and Friedberg I'd appreciate if you dropped this asinine line of reasoning.
The success of questionable products doesn't preclude that the similar success of other products like Minecraft is merited.
For one comparing something like Minecraft to something like Transformers is not analogous as Transformers has a huge amount of marketing and production money behind it whereas Minecraft was a game which was initially spread by word of mouth. Regular gamers told other gamers or made videos which showed the game was good and its success is largely born from that. Not only did that spur the success of the game but it launched the youtube careers of a variety of people like Yogscast who now, spend their days doing the job of playing and producing minecraft videos.
Minecraft is a great game.
Great on its own and greater in its flexibility of play through mods or custom servers.
So great a game that it has spurred a mass of imitators and the seeming necessity of many games to now include "crafting systems". Which is not to say that Minecraft created crafting, but it certainly seemed a turning point in how saturated games became with these sorts of systems.
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I, for one, would appreciate keeping this civil. There's literally no reason to be abrasive over opinions on Minecraft's quality as media.
This. I also would prefer it if people stopped trying to drag every single thread into an argument.
No :P
I doubt Microsoft buying Minecraft/Mojang is going to change much. It's profitable as it is and I doubt MS wants to muck around with that
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No :P
I doubt Microsoft buying Minecraft/Mojang is going to change much. It's profitable as it is and I doubt MS wants to muck around with that
I would post 'Yes', but that didn't go so well last time it happened :P
There's an intersting article on it on IGN
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/09/10/how-microsoft-buying-mojang-could-change-minecraft-forever
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(e: This was in reply to Akalabeth.)
OK, let me summarise My Personal Views On Minecraft for the nth time:
There's a nucleus of stuff in Minecraft which is absolute gold, somewhere in the intersection of the construction and resource gathering and exploration mechanics which were laid down in infdev and alpha. My memories of late alpha and early beta multiplayer are rich with heady nostalgia. However, the actual piece of software called 'Minecraft' which contained that experience was incredibly incomplete, riddled with bugs and broken systems. Anyone who played back in those days surely remembers the frustration of waking up one day to discover that a routine patch had totally buggered the game. You couldn't really call it 'great', but it was dripping with promise.
But it didn't deliver. Mojang patched up the bugs, eventually, but as far as that core brilliance goes there wasn't much improvement or refinement at all, just some fairly inconsequential novelties. When Notch finally did try to really push the game's basic vision, the result was the Adventure Update, which mostly served to cloud the things that made Minecraft great with ill-fitting RPG fluff.
Notch caught lightning in a bottle, basically, and while that might deserve praise it was down to luck as much as his own skill. The real test of his abilities was whether he'd have the perceptiveness and creativity to take that idea to new and greater heights, and in that respect he, and his successors at Mojang, have failed dismally.
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One thing that I have not seen mentioned yet is what happens to those who have made a living from making videos and monetizing them via youtube or streaming on twitch/hitbox?
One of the major things that mojang always allowed was the ability to record gameplay and monetize it. Microsoft, last I looked at their EULA, specifically forbids people from making money at all from the software they publish/own.
If Microsoft does buy Mojang and applies these rules to minecraft, the impact of LPers and server owners is going to be huge.
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Notch caught lightning in a bottle, basically, and while that might deserve praise it was down to luck as much as his own skill. The real test of his abilities was whether he'd have the perceptiveness and creativity to take that idea to new and greater heights, and in that respect he, and his successors at Mojang, have failed dismally.
What heights would these be?
I've heard people talk about the potential but no one's really put it into words.
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Someone on one of the many reddit posts about this made a good point: Minecraft, to people that are in the demographics of HLP, is just a game that some enjoy and some don't. But for the young preteen or early teen crowd, it's practically a religion. Microsoft is essentially trying to buy a generation. They really should look at the success rate of a bunch of old white guys trying to get in on what's "hip" before they waste the $2.5 billion, though.
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Indeed, my younger brothers are crazy about Minecraft. I used to play with legos when I was their age... Maybe after M$ ruins Minecraft, they'll start playing with real toys. :)
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Notch caught lightning in a bottle, basically, and while that might deserve praise it was down to luck as much as his own skill. The real test of his abilities was whether he'd have the perceptiveness and creativity to take that idea to new and greater heights, and in that respect he, and his successors at Mojang, have failed dismally.
What heights would these be?
I've heard people talk about the potential but no one's really put it into words.
I mean, personally I think if they'd just polished up beta 1.7 and released that it'd have been an acceptable Minecraft 1.0. The terrain generation, and by extension the worlds it creates, is really the soul of the whole experience and probably the component with the most potential for development, but when they tried building on it further with 1.8 they arguably just made the landscape much less vibrant and unique. It's easy to look for some gaping fatal flaw to point to and say "I could've done that better" but I don't know if I see anything like that in Minecraft; just a lot of mediocrity being plastered over brilliance.
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My one biggest complaint about minecraft is that there aren't more randomnly generated, hostile-inhabited structures.
Just small, one-room dungeons and generic abandoned mines. How about some NPC enemy towns or castles or underground dungeons, they add bricks but the world itself still remains pretty much the same. Most of the additions focus more on building than on adventuring. They add new enemies and so forth here and there but, it's not really enough.
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My one biggest complaint about minecraft is that there aren't more randomnly generated, hostile-inhabited structures.
Just small, one-room dungeons and generic abandoned mines. How about some NPC enemy towns or castles or underground dungeons, they add bricks but the world itself still remains pretty much the same. Most of the additions focus more on building than on adventuring. They add new enemies and so forth here and there but, it's not really enough.
You forgot about Strongholds which are the underground dungeons
But I get what you're saying. It'd be nice to discover the world rather than just create it
I'd also prefer that Minecraft took an approach in the Terraria direction in which the combat actually has more of a point.
By that I mean, if you take away combat in Terraria, you're missing out on a ****ton of awesome things. If you take away combat in Minecraft, you're just minimizing frustration so you can obtain your stuff to build with
That's sort of a departure from the original post though
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My one biggest complaint about minecraft is that there aren't more randomnly generated, hostile-inhabited structures.
Just small, one-room dungeons and generic abandoned mines. How about some NPC enemy towns or castles or underground dungeons, they add bricks but the world itself still remains pretty much the same. Most of the additions focus more on building than on adventuring. They add new enemies and so forth here and there but, it's not really enough.
You forgot about Strongholds which are the underground dungeons
But I get what you're saying. It'd be nice to discover the world rather than just create it
I'd also prefer that Minecraft took an approach in the Terraria direction in which the combat actually has more of a point.
By that I mean, if you take away combat in Terraria, you're missing out on a ****ton of awesome things. If you take away combat in Minecraft, you're just minimizing frustration so you can obtain your stuff to build with
That's sort of a departure from the original post though
Isn't there only one stronghold though? And the only unique inhabitant is from what I understand silverfish.
I've never actually seen a stronghold. Or actually you're probably talking abotu Nether strongholds, which are cool too but again would like more of that.
I want my minecraft to be more like skyrim basically. Have the world seem inhabited, by both good and bad. Have ruins and towns and places to conquer and explore. These pyramids and witches huts are good and stuff, but instead of just a jungle pyramid a big structure with one or two chests in it. why not have a run down mayan town or whatnot surrounding this pyramid or ziggarut or whatnot. Have these randomnly generated structures more randomn. Throw a spawner in there once in a while, have random tunnels underneath perhaps, etecetera.
If they could do thousands of random dungeons in Daggerfall, they can do a few random dungeons and towns and so forth in Minecraft :)
I know mods can add a lot but, I dunno. I've been watching a few of the yogscast series regarding their yogscast complete pack which is supposed to have some 1000 odd mods in it but, for the most part it just seems like the mods don't really add much to the game. There are some magical mods, which seem cool, and there are some dungeons added and lots of mobs and so forth. But on the other side, it just seems like tier upon tier of odd blocks to build. Build a block to build a new type of block and get a block to harvest other blocks easier and store the blocks in the computer but in the end for what?
Though, that being sad I think they also faff about a lot on purpose to show the mod rather than to simply get things done.
As for microsoft. well if they do indeed but it, I suspect they would leave the PC gaming side of things mod friendly but they would monetize the Xbox experience by adding some DLC and the like most likely. Maybe this same DLC would be on PC as well but of course be optional. Not sure how that would work with servers though.
Microsoft, from my perspective has supported some great games. Halo games for the Xbox, Gears of War, they have the summer indie of arcade which helped put a spotlight on games like Limbo, super meat boy, bastion, etcetera. They've done some good things, and the 360 was known for its multiplayer over the PS3. Not sure that still holds true. Minecraft however is the best selling indie game on the xbox.
I don't think they would **** it up.
And on the subject of white men trying to be hip. Remember Steve jobs? He was an older white guy who defined hip for a lot of people.
But whatver the case. It's not sold yet. And it's not screwed up yet. Though obviously some early adopters disagree.
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Having found out more details about the recent implosion of the Bukkit project, I now realise that Mojang is an incredibly ****ty and unethical company. Let Microsoft have them; the two deserve each other.
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huh, can i have some links on that, phantom?
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This is a decent summary (http://www.reddit.com/r/bukkit/comments/2fvzp4/what_is_exactly_going_on/ckdcki2), but you need to dig around for a while before you see exactly how ****ed up the situation was. Read EvilSeph's original statement particularly.
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/me facepalms
Jesus, that's... something.
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Right? I mean the people in Mojang aren't really bad people, but they just cannot handle the kind of responsibility that comes with owning Minecraft and they've caused a lot of damage because of that.
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Also, some Microsoft lawyer is probably having an aneurysm after discovering that the code Mojang supposedly owns in Bukkit is under a licence that requires them to open-source Minecraft itself.
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What's unethical exactly?
The lawyer who gives his two cents seems to side with mojang on legal matters.
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Well, the sale has been confirmed, so I consider it a 'wait and see' situation at the moment.
If Microsoft do an 'EA' and ruin the license, then sales and player-numbers will reflect that and they will have wasted $2.5bn, let's just hope they are not that stupid.
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Is Microsoft just doing this for the potential payout? I wouldn't have been surprised if there was more to it than that. Notch, at least, has publicly expressed some opinions that might make him something of a "thorn in their side" that might consider it worth the money to shut him up.
There might be (other) "control" reasons, rather than direct "gimme that income" reasons, that affected the decision, as well.
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What's unethical exactly?
The lawyer who gives his two cents seems to side with mojang on legal matters.
I dunno what lawyer you're talking about, because VideoGameAttorney (http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fk5nn/my_response_to_vubui_mojang_and_the_hundreds_yes/)'s two cents are very squarely siding with Wolfe and the DMCA takedown. As for ethics? Well, these people were basically providing the stable modding API that Mojang promised. For free. Without any support from Mojang, who hired Bukkit's best devs and secretly bought out the project only to totally abandon it. That's a ****ty way to treat people by any standard.
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Is Microsoft just doing this for the potential payout? I wouldn't have been surprised if there was more to it than that.
In pure monetary terms, Mojang and Minecraft are not worth 2.5 billion. Mojang itself is a development house that has had one incredible hit, and no followup that came even close to its success. The revenue from continued Minecraft sales, while considerable, will not pay off 2.5 billion USD anytime soon.
But, Minecraft has an incredible install base. Having access to them is worth a lot. Then there's the, for lack of a better term, cultural aspects of this. Minecraft is one of THE entry drugs into gaming. Being associated with that is certainly not a bad thing, from a marketing perspective.
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What's unethical exactly?
The lawyer who gives his two cents seems to side with mojang on legal matters.
I dunno what lawyer you're talking about, because VideoGameAttorney (http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fk5nn/my_response_to_vubui_mojang_and_the_hundreds_yes/)'s two cents are very squarely siding with Wolfe and the DMCA takedown.
"the arguments that Minecraft is open source are ridiculous"
"But at the end of the day, don’t just believe one side is “good” and the other “bad” here."
What exactly are you reading again?
Because earlier you said:
Also, some Microsoft lawyer is probably having an aneurysm after discovering that the code Mojang supposedly owns in Bukkit is under a licence that requires them to open-source Minecraft itself.
Despite the fact this lawyer says its ridiculous. So, I really don't know what you're reading from this link.
As for ethics? Well, these people were basically providing the stable modding API that Mojang promised. For free. Without any support from Mojang, who hired Bukkit's best devs and secretly bought out the project only to totally abandon it. That's a ****ty way to treat people by any standard.
Hiring and paying people is unethical?
Allegedly gaining ownership of a property and deciding to drop it is unethical?
They dropped a property that the developers themselves decided to drop, or rather they decided to still work on it despite the original developers dropping it.
If Mojang is developing an alternative to bukkit, why would they support it?
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Is Microsoft just doing this for the potential payout? I wouldn't have been surprised if there was more to it than that.
In pure monetary terms, Mojang and Minecraft are not worth 2.5 billion. Mojang itself is a development house that has had one incredible hit, and no followup that came even close to its success. The revenue from continued Minecraft sales, while considerable, will not pay off 2.5 billion USD anytime soon.
But, Minecraft has an incredible install base. Having access to them is worth a lot. Then there's the, for lack of a better term, cultural aspects of this. Minecraft is one of THE entry drugs into gaming. Being associated with that is certainly not a bad thing, from a marketing perspective.
I'm reminded of the move Charles Foster Kane used to corner the newspaper market... the competition had put together the best damned news team money could buy... how could CFK possibly compete with that? So what does CFK do? He buys it.
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Despite the fact this lawyer says its ridiculous. So, I really don't know what you're reading from this link.
Look, I don't mind that you don't have the time to read through what I said and referenced properly, but you shouldn't go around replying on that basis. Now, the situation here is this: the GPL, under which Bukkit is licensed, has very strict conditions requiring you to release the source code for all elements of the software you're providing. Bukkit, however, works on a basic level by taking sections of the released Minecraft binaries, rewriting them to add functionality, then reinserting them. This means that substantial sections of Bukkit's code are based on obfuscated, compiled and therefore non-GPL-compliant code from Minecraft. Whatever way you slice this, it's a licence violation. VideoGameAttorney states this very clearly in his post so I don't know how you missed that.
You have similarly misinterpreted what I said about the ethics of Mojang's policy towards Bukkit, so I leave it as an exercise for you to work out what I actually said and why it's not unreasonable.
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Despite the fact this lawyer says its ridiculous. So, I really don't know what you're reading from this link.
Look, I don't mind that you don't have the time to read through what I said and referenced properly, but you shouldn't go around replying on that basis. Now, the situation here is this: the GPL, under which Bukkit is licensed, has very strict conditions requiring you to release the source code for all elements of the software you're providing. Bukkit, however, works on a basic level by taking sections of the released Minecraft binaries, rewriting them to add functionality, then reinserting them. This means that substantial sections of Bukkit's code are based on obfuscated, compiled and therefore non-GPL-compliant code from Minecraft. Whatever way you slice this, it's a licence violation. VideoGameAttorney states this very clearly in his post so I don't know how you missed that.
You have similarly misinterpreted what I said about the ethics of Mojang's policy towards Bukkit, so I leave it as an exercise for you to work out what I actually said and why it's not unreasonable.
I haven't misinterpreted anything,
I simply don't believe that hiring people and paying them a salary is treating them in an unethical manner.
Similarly I don't believe that any company has a moral obligation to support a team of modders or independent developers which have taken it upon themselves to improve someone else's product. Particularly if the aims of those independent developers is in conflict with the companies own goals and projects.
On the subject of minecraft code in GPL, he says that the presence of such code would NEGATE the GPL not VIOLATE it.
There's a very clear difference between something being negated and something being violated.
A license that is negated doesn't exist.
A license that is violated exists and has been transgressed upon.
As a lawyer I would think he understands that and chose one word over other with intent. Also his post is clearly hypothetical in nature. He's not casting judgement, he's creating various scenarios or a framework of understanding which the facts may or may not fit into. The only thing that looks funny to me is Mojang claiming they own bukkit when the developers were apparently hired not to work on bukkit but on the competing minecraft API. None of the links in the reddit list gave a clear reason for why Mojang is claiming ownership of bukkit unless I missed one of them.
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Bukkit's downloads page has been successfully taken down through the DMCA by means of a claim made by a former developer that the distribution violates the terms of the GPL. Clearly the licence issue is valid.
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In pure monetary terms, Mojang and Minecraft are not worth 2.5 billion. Mojang itself is a development house that has had one incredible hit, and no followup that came even close to its success. The revenue from continued Minecraft sales, while considerable, will not pay off 2.5 billion USD anytime soon.
But, Minecraft has an incredible install base. Having access to them is worth a lot. Then there's the, for lack of a better term, cultural aspects of this. Minecraft is one of THE entry drugs into gaming. Being associated with that is certainly not a bad thing, from a marketing perspective.
I'm reminded of the move Charles Foster Kane used to corner the newspaper market... the competition had put together the best damned news team money could buy... how could CFK possibly compete with that? So what does CFK do? He buys it.
Buy him out, boys!
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I haven't misinterpreted anything,
I simply don't believe that hiring people and paying them a salary is treating them in an unethical manner.
Similarly I don't believe that any company has a moral obligation to support a team of modders or independent developers which have taken it upon themselves to improve someone else's product. Particularly if the aims of those independent developers is in conflict with the companies own goals and projects.
Morals are not ethics. What PH is saying is that when Mojang pseudo-partnered with Bukkit in order to provide an actual modding interface for the game, and then subsequently headhunted away the best Bukkit devs, afterward throwing the rest of Bukkit under the bus and letting the entire project wither on the vine, that was the unethical part.
And it really kinda is.
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I haven't misinterpreted anything,
I simply don't believe that hiring people and paying them a salary is treating them in an unethical manner.
Similarly I don't believe that any company has a moral obligation to support a team of modders or independent developers which have taken it upon themselves to improve someone else's product. Particularly if the aims of those independent developers is in conflict with the companies own goals and projects.
Morals are not ethics. What PH is saying is that when Mojang pseudo-partnered with Bukkit in order to provide an actual modding interface for the game, and then subsequently headhunted away the best Bukkit devs, afterward throwing the rest of Bukkit under the bus and letting the entire project wither on the vine, that was the unethical part.
And it really kinda is.
Uh, Ethics is moral philosophy.
To say that ethics are not morals is to say that you don't understand ethics. At all.
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To say that ethics are morals is to damn every defense lawyer who ever lived. Try again. The two are similar but distinct concepts.
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To say that ethics are morals is to damn every defense lawyer who ever lived. Try again. The two are similar but distinct concepts.
I never said ethics are morals. I said ethics is moral philosophy.
Business ethics
Legal ethics.
etcetera
are all applied ethics
or "Applied ethics is the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment."
Look it up
https://www.google.ca/#q=ethics
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To say that ethics are not morals is to say that you don't understand ethics. At all.
Yeah, you pretty ****ing clearly said exactly that. Emphasis mine. I'll wait for you to start discussing in good faith again.
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Bukkit's downloads page has been successfully taken down through the DMCA by means of a claim made by a former developer that the distribution violates the terms of the GPL. Clearly the licence issue is valid.
No, actually, it was taken down because that developer has always held the copyright on their own code. The GPL was never valid because it's always incorporated non-GPL'd code (namely, the obfuscated Minecraft source), which means it has never actually been covered by a valid GPL.
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To say that ethics are not morals is to say that you don't understand ethics. At all.
Yeah, you pretty ****ing clearly said exactly that. Emphasis mine. I'll wait for you to start discussing in good faith again.
Nowhere in that quotation do I say "ethics are morals". Which is what you are claiming.
What I ACTUALLY said is that your claim of "ethics are not morals" is evidence that you don't understand what ethics are. But it is NOT the same as saying "ethics are morals".
You're simply failing to understand the nuance of the sentence.
Your original claim is to say that my statement that Mojang doesn't have a "moral obligation" to support so and so is incongruous, because "ethics are not morals".
However ethics is as I said the moral philosophy. The concept of morality is used to determine ethical behaviour. Or in other words, principles of morals determine what actions are ethical (right) or unethical (wrong).
So to say that Mojang didn't have a "moral obligation" is analogous to saying that the morals of the situation didn't dictate that certain (ethical) behaviour be taken to support so and so.
Like seriously, what about that situation is unethical?
It's unethical that a business didn't fufill a non-binding, non-specific agreement ?
It's unethical that some people were hired, but not others?
It's unethical that an unsolicited and unofficial project was not give official support after the fact?
Bukkit's downloads page has been successfully taken down through the DMCA by means of a claim made by a former developer that the distribution violates the terms of the GPL. Clearly the licence issue is valid.
No, actually, it was taken down because that developer has always held the copyright on their own code. The GPL was never valid because it's always incorporated non-GPL'd code (namely, the obfuscated Minecraft source), which means it has never actually been covered by a valid GPL.
. . . hence, "negate" not "violate" :yes:
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Good. I got tired of Mojang long ago. The development of Minecraft moves at a snails pace and the game looks and plays (and mods) as a perpetual beta. Maybe now things will change a bit..
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I dont think it will get any better under microsoft though.
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If people want to discuss whether Mojang has acted poorly towards Bukkit, carry on.
We can have the entire discussion without a stupid, pointless discussion of semantics where people try to win points based on who can show off their book lurnin' the most. If I see it again, there will be consequences.
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I dont think it will get any better under microsoft though.
I think it goes to reason that at the very least the xbox 360 + xbox one version will improve.
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Well if by improvement you mean that a ****ton of DLCs will be available for it in the store, then I guess so.
In fairness, I can totally see minecraft being improved in the xbone. Mods show that it is perfectly possible to create great visual improvements without sacrificing its feel...
(http://i.imgur.com/FbhDUUc.jpg)
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Well if by improvement you mean that a ****ton of DLCs will be available for it in the store, then I guess so.
**** ton of DLC? Based on what examples?
Other 1st party microsoft titles like Halo and Gears of War don't have a **** ton of DLC, they have a few map packs or expansions and that's about it.
Microsoft could sell DLC on any platform. But they could make the xbox version the premiere console experience to sell the Xbox One. This means giving it features or perhaps free content that is not available on the PS4.
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In fairness, I can totally see minecraft being improved in the xbone. Mods show that it is perfectly possible to create great visual improvements without sacrificing its feel...
That picture sacrifices Minecraft's feel so brutally you'd need a large stepped pyramid and a steady supply of obsidian to recreate it. I really do not understand the number of people who think Minecraft is somehow inferior for not being photorealistic.
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Well I guess my sensitivity is really at odds with yours. That's fine too, but I guess it poses a problem: will microsoft be conservative regarding minecraft or will they change it? Will they maintain it in a very conservative way so as to appease everyone's sensitivity of what is to maintain its "feel", and will then they perhaps build a minecraft 2.0 with more profound changes, be them visual or content-wise (a lot of more procedural content would be nice)?
Perhaps not even calling it "minecraft 2.0" so as not to piss off minecraft users.
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Well they won't be calling it Minecraft 2.0 because Mojang sold Minecraft alpha with the promise that all future versions of the game would be included in the purchase, and that has proven dangerously vague already.
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It's the BetterCraft then. (**** I googled this just now and of course it already exists ****ing hell)
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Bukkit's downloads page has been successfully taken down through the DMCA by means of a claim made by a former developer that the distribution violates the terms of the GPL. Clearly the licence issue is valid.
No, actually, it was taken down because that developer has always held the copyright on their own code. The GPL was never valid because it's always incorporated non-GPL'd code (namely, the obfuscated Minecraft source), which means it has never actually been covered by a valid GPL.
The process you're describing is precisely a violation of the licence. That's what it means in the first place, there's no 'actually' about it. You violate the terms of the licence, it no longer covers you, and so you have no right to use the work. All this pedantry has been completely meaningless.
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The GPL never covered the project in the first place, and the DMCA request had nothing to do with the GPL.
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You're missing the point: the DMCA request worked because the programmer responsible had licensed his contributions under the GPL. Bukkit violated the terms of the GPL, and he can therefore demand that they stop using his code. We're both saying the exact same thing with different words.
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You're missing the point: the DMCA request worked because the programmer responsible had licensed his contributions under the GPL. Bukkit violated the terms of the GPL, and he can therefore demand that they stop using his code. We're both saying the exact same thing with different words.
No, you're not.
Here's a site which deals with "violations" of the GPL.
http://gpl-violations.org/index.html
Violations in this case are when companies use GPL software and fail to follow the terms of the license. They are in violation of the license and legal action has been taken against them.
Having the license for bukkit no longer be GPL due to the use of Mojang's code isn't a violation of the license, it's a disqualification from using the license. It no longer meets the criteria against which GPL software is measured.
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Those violations are being prosecuted on the exact same legal basis as the DMCA claim made against Bukkit. Look, here is how it works: I am a programmer. I write some code. Under copyright law I can take legal action against anybody who redistributes or modifies this code without my permission. Because I want people to be able to redistribute and modify my code under certain conditions, I attach to it a licence stating the conditions under which it may be redistributed or modified. Anyone who redistributes or modifies my code in a way which does not meet these conditions -- that is, violates the licence -- no longer has my permission -- that is, is no longer covered by the licence -- to redistribute or modify my code, and I can therefore take legal action against them.
This is what happened with Bukkit under the DMCA. This is what happens when the FSF prosecutes GPL violations. There is no difference between these two concepts. You have spent the last page or so tilting at windmills.
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OK look, there is one error I made earlier: if Mojang wholly owned all the code in Bukkit (which they categorically do not) they would indeed be able to distribute it under the GPL. Please let that be enough to put this thread-killing tangent to rest.
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We still care about Minecraft here? I thought we all got bored of it after like a month since we're not 12. I guess it was just me.
Let Microsoft buy them. If the minecraft IP was going somewhere, it wasn't without corporate sponsorship. Good move by Microsoft, IMO.
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Seriously, the "I'm a big hard man who doesn't play childish computer games" shtick is not going to win you any friends on this forum.
And is rather foolish given that a similar dismissive view would have people saying that we're basically on a forum devoted to changing the pew pew noises on a 14 year old video game. One from back in the days when video games in general were still regarded by many as a kids hobby.
If you don't care about Minecraft, leave the thread to those who do.
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The thing is as I understand it,
If the minecraft code integrated in Bukkit, obfuscated or not, is there without permission then Bukkit is no longer GPL since the integration of that code.
If wolverness started contributing to bukkit after this code was integrated, he's contributing to a product which is not under GPL license.
Therefore his code is not GPL either but is rather released without license (but would still be assumed to be his copyright).
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleAlone
Assuming that's all correct, I think that's what the lawyer means when he says the license is negated. It's not a violation, but a negation of the license itself but the guy still retains the rights to his code.
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OK, you're still a bit confused about the licence situation but this phone keyboard is too fiddly to explain in detail right now. Basically, Wolfe's contributions are legitimately covered by the GPL, the problem is that they can't be used alongside the Minecraft code because it's not open-source.
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OK, you're still a bit confused about the licence situation but this phone keyboard is too fiddly to explain in detail right now. Basically, Wolfe's contributions are legitimately covered by the GPL, the problem is that they can't be used alongside the Minecraft code because it's not open-source.
Yes but if minecraft code was integrated before Wolfe's contributions is the derivative work still GPL? That's the question.
"If a program P is released under the GPL that means *any and every part of it* can be used under the GPL. If you integrate module Q, and release the combined program P+Q under the GPL, that means any part of P+Q can be used under the GPL. One part of P+Q is Q. So releasing P+Q under the GPL says that Q any part of it can be used under the GPL. Putting it in other words, a user who obtains P+Q under the GPL can delete P, so that just Q remains, still under the GPL.
If the license of module Q permits you to give permission for that, then it is GPL-compatible. Otherwise, it is not GPL-compatible.
If the license for Q says in no uncertain terms that you must do certain things (not compatible with the GPL) when you redistribute Q on its own, then it does not permit you to distribute Q under the GPL. It follows that you can't release P+Q under the GPL either. So you cannot link or combine P with Q."
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It doesn't matter, really; it'd be at issue only if someone wanted to stop Wolfe from distributing his contributions. He released his code under the GPL, so anyone using it in a GPL-incompatible way is fair game for a takedown from him.
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It doesn't matter, really; it'd be at issue only if someone wanted to stop Wolfe from distributing his contributions. He released his code under the GPL, so anyone using it in a GPL-incompatible way is fair game for a takedown from him.
Yes but the GPL of Bukkit is not legitimate. As videogame guy confirms in that reddit thread, it was the wrong license from the start.
Thus wolfe's takedown is really not based on the violation of the license but the inclusion of his code.
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That picture sacrifices Minecraft's feel so brutally you'd need a large stepped pyramid and a steady supply of obsidian to recreate it. I really do not understand the number of people who think Minecraft is somehow inferior for not being photorealistic.
It still looks like Minecraft but with better textures and lighting, I dont think it sacrifices the feel of MC. Tough I never liked MC graphics anyway, it is quite an ugly game, and not ugly in a stylised 8bit oldschool way, just ugly. Adnancing the graphics certainly wouldnt hurt.
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Let me get this straight...
Bukkit contains the obfuscated code from Minecraft, and therefore GPL can't be applied to it, and even if Bukkit has the GPL license in its installer, etc., the license is void... Ok. Has that always been the case, or was there a time when Bukkit didn't contain the obfuscated Minecraft code, and was therefore GPL-able?
From a technical standpoint...
If I write a program that uses java.util.ArrayList, I can still GPL my program, despite the fact that the source code for that class is not mine to re-license. Still, if I wanted to, I could put up a separate download for the source code for the referenced libraries. My program would still be GPL, and even though the assholes at Oracle could send me a C&D saying "the source code for java.util.ArrayList is proprietary, zomg!!!", that wouldn't invalidate the GPL on my program itself.
So, what if the compiled library containing java.util.ArrayList were also proprietary? I don't entirely remember the details, but I think maybe that would mean my program has to be LGPL rather than GPL, right? But if the people at Sun were nice (because **** Oracle), they could permit me to offer a third download, a mirror for the official download for the compiled class file for java.util.ArrayList, covered by their proprietary license, and that wouldn't invalidate the (L)GPL either.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see Minecraft 2 within probably only 2 years, with all new code and (optional) graphics, that manages to keep what made the original great.
It would be easy for such a huge company to throw a few million dollars and a handful of coders and artists at Mojang to rebuild the whole game from the ground up. If they manage to make it good, without screwing it up with in-game purchases and stuff, and actually market the thing, they will make all the monies.
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Yes, I can totally see Minecraft 2 with xbone improved Grafix and with an option on the menu "Classic visual style" that renders things just like today.
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343 Studios should totally make Minecraft Anniversary.