Sponge License
==============

Sponge API, and the Sponge mod for Minecraft Forge, are under the MIT license without a Contributor License Agreement.
A Contributor License Agreement is considered unnecessary and may discourage contributors.

Details on the MIT license can be found at http://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/.

.. note::
    The MIT has been chosen for Sponge in preference to the GPL licence used for Bukkit. The main reason why GPL
    (GNU Public License) is not favored for Sponge is that it encumbers developers of Sponge Plugins by requiring
    that they maintain their code in GPL. MIT license phrasing has no reference to the redistribution parameters
    that exist in the GPL. The philosophy of how GNU based software is designed and distributed is excellent, but
    in light of the DMCA issues that have befallen on the CraftBukkit community, there is true value in keeping
    Sponge under the MIT license.
    
    The bottom line is that a Sponge plugin developer can still own their own software and choose not to release
    the source code to their plugin and still be in compliance with MIT license. Sponge plugins share memory-in-place
    with Sponge coremod, and thus if Sponge were under GPL, this would tether Sponge to the Plugin. This subtle point
    may otherwise be lost on a good portion of the future Sponge plugin developers.
    
    MIT license (for sake of argument) just keeps Sponge protected, it keeps Sponge plugin developers free to license
    their plugins anyway they see fit. In other words, GPL is about the freedom of the software (the software is free
    and freely available). MIT License is about the freedom of the developer, the worker who makes their mark and produces
    a work that is based on Sponge. The Sponge development team are deliberately erring on the side of granting more
    freedom to the developer, rather than granting freedom to the software. We hope you agree that's not a bad thing.