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I think this person here is unto something : http://forums.bukkit.org/threa...

Mojang has flirted with the idea of a plugin marketplace before and with the idea that plugin developers could make money off them : http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4... Minecraft still doesn't have an official API. As far as we know, it is still in the works. It may VERY well be that Microsoft is planning to make a plugin marketplace from which they plan to make a certain percentage of profit on all plugin sales. This is the only thing that makes sense to me.

From what I can tell, it wasn't just one of the main Bukkit devs that stepped down, it was a joint decision by everyone who was participating in Bukkit development at the time. Many of their resignatiion statements are up on bukkit.org right now.

People are acting as if Wesley Wolfe (Wolvereness) is trying to claim ownership of Minecraft server code. I don't know him, but that is not his intent from what I've seen. It is simply to have his code removed from a project with a clear conflict of interest over licensing. From what I have seen, it has been a case of: 'remove my code from the project OR opensource the Minecraft server code'.

The fact that this brings to light that Bukkit is no longer eligible to use its codebase because it's in violation of its own license is just a bonus.

Unfortunately Spigot is suffering from a side-effect of this claim. It was built off the Bukkit source code, so if Wolvereness were to leave his code in that project, without a DMCA claim, it would dilute his legal position against Mojang.

Here are the facts as I see them:
1. Bukkit is an open source project, licensed under the GPL.
2. Many developers, including Wolfe, contribute code to the project under the GPL terms. The developers retain copyright over their contributions.
3. The Minecraft server was reverse engineered (apparently in violation of Minecraft's EULA) and the resulting decompiled/de-obfuscated code initially included in the CraftBukkit project.
4. Projects like Bukkit, Forge and Spigot add considerable value to Minecraft, but are not (initially) controlled by Mojang.
5. Mojang surreptitiously acquires the Bukkit project by hiring a number of the project's key developers. While the hiring of the developers is made public, the acquisition of the project is not.
6. The developers Mojang hire work on Bukkit-Minecraft "intergration". Bukkit features get added to Minecraft's server, and proprietary Minecraft server code gets incorporated into Bukkit/CraftBukkit.
7. Community developers continue to contribute to Bukkit, under the GPL, thinking they are working for an independent project.
8. Bukkit/CraftBukkit is distributed during this time, under the (L)GPL, including the proprietary code. This is a violation of the (L)GPL.
9. Mojang changes EULA to prevent 'pay to win' servers, and asserts Bukkit is subject to that EULA too.
10. The majority of developers vote to discontinue the project. Mojang steps in publicly to say that they can't do that and they have owned the project for two years.
11. Mojang asserts control over the entire project, including contributions from community.
12. Wolvereness DMCAs the project, for the removal of his code.
13. Mojang claim they added no code to the project, yet the project had been distributed for two years including Minecraft server code while the project was supposedly in Mojang's ownership. Mojang have been aware of licensing issues since 2011, but have done nothing to remove their proprietary code from a GPLed project in the time since they acquired it. Licensing of the project has not changed.

It seems that there are only four possibilities: Mojang kills Bukkit and walks away; Mojang rewrites Bukkit to remove/rewrite code from outside contributors and closes source; Mojang caves and opensources Minecraft server code; Mojang takes Wolfe to court to determine outcome (which could take years of appeals).

There are three parties: Wesley Wolfe (who wrote GPL code included in the project and issued the DMCA notice), the author(s) of the server code (which allegedly is included in the mod in some way) and the author(s) of the mod (who are accused of violating the GPL by mixing proprietary code with GPL code).

It would have been nice if the submitter had included the original claim, which is reported here. Quote:

My name is Wesley Wolfe. A site hosted on an IP address owned by Multiplay
(ip redacted) is infringing on my software copyright by the distribution
of a software known as CraftBukkit.

Original content can be found at

https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/commits?author=Wolvereness

https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/commit/0a0fee8be25bf8a732abff2d66a89a64614b6327

and the appropriate license for previously mentioned content can be found at

https://github.com/Wolvereness/Bukkit-Bleeding/blob/f210234e59275330f83b994e199c76f6abd41ee7/LICENCE.txt

The provided license requires the use of included or linking code to
provide the original source under the GNU GPL license version 3, or any
later version. An official notice has been sent to Mojang AB, whereas the
Chief Operating Officer, Vu Bui, responded with the clear text:

Mojang has not authorized the inclusion of any of its proprietary
Minecraft software (including its Minecraft Server software) within the
Bukkit project to be included in or made subject to any GPL or LGPL
license, or indeed any other open source license

As the Minecraft Server software is included in CraftBukkit, and the
original code has not been provided or its use authorized, this is a
violation of my copyright. I have a good faith belief the distribution of
CraftBukkit includes content of which the distribution is not authorized by
the copyright owner, it's agent, or the law.

IMHO, if the information about what's included in what is accurate, the DMCA notice and license complaint is legitimate. The inclusion of his GPL code in the mode requires that the remaining mod code be open-sourced, but the author(s) of the proprietary server code which is allegedly included in the mod have not authorized their code to be open-sourced. Lack of source for the complete mod is a GPL violation. If the mod authors aren't authorized to use the server code, then that may be a violation of the server author(s)' license as well, but that's irrelevant with regard to this DMCA takedown notice. A weak point could be that he may have contributed his GPL code knowing that there is proprietary code in the project. On the other hand, he may have contributed his code believing that the project already contained other GPL code and would abide by the license.

How many people will be playing? My youngest brother runs a online Minecraft (Bukkit) server. Early on, we determined that we didn't have the upload bandwidth needed to run one for more than a few people simultaneously. About a month and a half ago, he started hosting again after a break. He now has about 25 people on at a time most of the day and has pulled in enough "donations" to cover all his costs so far with a few hundred dollars leftover. The extra money comes to less than minimum wage seeing that he spends almost all his free time managing/playing it. I think he is hoping that once he can get 100+ people playing that he can start making some real money.

All in all, if your son is resourceful and willing to put the time and energy into figuring out how to properly manage a server and attract new players, he can get some hosting and a Buycraft account and make at least enough money for the server to pay for itself.

As far as who to host with, I think my brother uses BeastNode although he said he was considering trying another company of which I can't remember the name. If I find out, I will reply to this comment and add it.

I run a Minecraft server with/for a small-ish group of friends and family (~25 people whitelisted). The problem we've faced is that as Mojang adds more features, you have to do a reboot of your map if you want to have access (or easy access, I should say) to them if you're playing in Survival mode. Because of this we've already rebooted once, since we ran one map from ~1.2 beta through the 1.0.0 launch (to get NPC villages, Fortresses+The End, etc), and now are facing a second reboot because of Emeralds being added (and to get a map with jungles not out in the far away/unexplored areas).

Some people wanted to keep working on old projects or at least have access to them, so I found a mod called Multiverse that allowed me to set up portals across worlds. Now our old map is Creative / free build, our current map is Survival, and we have a flat map in Creative for large projects. When 1.3 gets released we'll probably spawn a new map and change the current map to creative (with its own inventory, separate from the new map) and start a new.

A server-side Lua interface is planned for Minecraft, but it's not actually out yet, and even after it comes out, nothing will be client-side. See here. Everything now is done in Java, usually with Bukkit on the server and Spout on the client.

There are mods that allow for quick building and protection of blocks as well as a lot of other useful stuff. You might check out bukkit as a place to start. It is a modding framework w/ a bunch of really useful plugins already made.