Levvy055 · September 25, 2014 15:48
diff --git a/Bukkit notice L GPL b/Bukkit notice L GPL
 This is an explanation of what has been happening. Note, however, that I am not involved in the current situation.
 Bukkit is an open source project licensed under GPL and LGPL. When someone commits code to an open source project, unless they sign an explicit agreement handing over their copyright ownership, they merely give the open source project permission to utilize the contributed code under very specific terms. GPL has very specific terms: you can only use GPL code with other GPL code.
 In this case, Bukkit and its contributions are licensed under a combination of GPL and LGPL. However, the project also contains a copy of Mojang's server code, which is proprietary. Therefore, it has never been legal to compile and distribute a copy of Bukkit, but up until recently, it has never been an issue because everyone involved has chosen to not pursue any legal action.
 Several years ago, although still a few months after the Bukkit project was created, Mojang purchased Bukkit. However, as far as the public was informed, Mojang merely hired the core four members of Bukkit and ownership of the Bukkit was still left in the hands of the community.
 Recently, EvilSeph, one of these core members who was originally hired of Mojang but eventually left, decided to shutdown the Bukkit project. At that point, from a tweet by jeb declaring that EvilSeph had no authorization to shutdown Bukkit, it became known that Mojang had not only hired the core four members, but that they had also purchased the Bukkit project itself.
 This fact was not known to the community or the Bukkit team outside the core members in the previous 2-3 years.
 Now, remember, Bukkit contains contributions from third parties that were licensed under GPL or LGPL, but the copyright ownership of these contributions were never transferred over to the Bukkit project, so Mojang was only able to acquire copyright ownership of code written by the four core Bukkit members. Mojang was also able to purchase the Bukkit brand and any other associated assets.
 For that reason, while Mojang has owned a portion of the Bukkit project, a substantial amount of code in Bukkit was still and is still owned by third-party contributors, likely numbering in the hundreds. This third-party code is all licensed under GPL (or LGPL, although LGPL is far less strict), which means that any of these contributors can object to the distribution of Bukkit as it is in violation of the license that they had provided to Bukkit for use of their code.
 Wolvereness is one of the long-time developers of Bukkit. He came on board in an official capacity early on but he, like most or all of the other non-core Bukkit team members, was never informed that Mojang had ever purchased Bukkit. After the recent revelations that he had been misled up until now, he elected to utilize his legal right to send a DMCA takedown notice to Bukkit and its derivatives for removal of his code, which is still copyrighted to him and was licensed to Bukkit and other parties using GPL or LGPL.
 Of course, as Bukkit contains a lot of community-contributed code, he is not only the one with the right to take issue with Bukkit's distribution. It is the act of compiling together Bukkit and Mojang's proprietary code that causes the infringement.
 Naturally, this does not bode well for Bukkit or the community, but we will see what happens.

 from http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_the_original_contributors_to_bukkit/
	This is an explanation of what has been happening. Note, however, that I am not involved in the current situation.
	Bukkit is an open source project licensed under GPL and LGPL. When someone commits code to an open source project, unless they sign an explicit agreement handing over their copyright ownership, they merely give the open source project permission to utilize the contributed code under very specific terms. GPL has very specific terms: you can only use GPL code with other GPL code.
	In this case, Bukkit and its contributions are licensed under a combination of GPL and LGPL. However, the project also contains a copy of Mojang's server code, which is proprietary. Therefore, it has never been legal to compile and distribute a copy of Bukkit, but up until recently, it has never been an issue because everyone involved has chosen to not pursue any legal action.
	Several years ago, although still a few months after the Bukkit project was created, Mojang purchased Bukkit. However, as far as the public was informed, Mojang merely hired the core four members of Bukkit and ownership of the Bukkit was still left in the hands of the community.
	Recently, EvilSeph, one of these core members who was originally hired of Mojang but eventually left, decided to shutdown the Bukkit project. At that point, from a tweet by jeb declaring that EvilSeph had no authorization to shutdown Bukkit, it became known that Mojang had not only hired the core four members, but that they had also purchased the Bukkit project itself.
	This fact was not known to the community or the Bukkit team outside the core members in the previous 2-3 years.
	Now, remember, Bukkit contains contributions from third parties that were licensed under GPL or LGPL, but the copyright ownership of these contributions were never transferred over to the Bukkit project, so Mojang was only able to acquire copyright ownership of code written by the four core Bukkit members. Mojang was also able to purchase the Bukkit brand and any other associated assets.
	For that reason, while Mojang has owned a portion of the Bukkit project, a substantial amount of code in Bukkit was still and is still owned by third-party contributors, likely numbering in the hundreds. This third-party code is all licensed under GPL (or LGPL, although LGPL is far less strict), which means that any of these contributors can object to the distribution of Bukkit as it is in violation of the license that they had provided to Bukkit for use of their code.
	Wolvereness is one of the long-time developers of Bukkit. He came on board in an official capacity early on but he, like most or all of the other non-core Bukkit team members, was never informed that Mojang had ever purchased Bukkit. After the recent revelations that he had been misled up until now, he elected to utilize his legal right to send a DMCA takedown notice to Bukkit and its derivatives for removal of his code, which is still copyrighted to him and was licensed to Bukkit and other parties using GPL or LGPL.
	Of course, as Bukkit contains a lot of community-contributed code, he is not only the one with the right to take issue with Bukkit's distribution. It is the act of compiling together Bukkit and Mojang's proprietary code that causes the infringement.
	Naturally, this does not bode well for Bukkit or the community, but we will see what happens.

	from http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/2fkz55/as_one_of_the_original_contributors_to_bukkit/