
$99 Mineserver: The Devil Is in the Details - evo_9
http://www.cringely.com/2016/03/17/99-mineserver-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
======
chasing
> First we needed a mobile app to administer the server so we hired an
> experienced mobile developer through guru.com. His credentials were great
> but maybe it should have been a tip-off when, right after we made the first
> payment, the developer moved from Europe to India... We were naive. The
> original development estimate was exceeded in the first week and we were up
> to more than 8X by the time we pulled the plug. Still the developer kept
> trying to charge us, eventually sending the project to arbitration, which we
> won.

This smacks of the client not knowing how to use a developer. Meaning: I can
imagine they made a simple (probably incomplete) scope or product definition
document, didn't realize where the complexity actually lay, found someone
cheap, and then realized that no one had the ability to actually shepherd the
project to completion. They knew nothing about their developer -- and she or
he knew nothing about them. And they weren't paying that much, really. So it
wasn't a huge priority in the developer's life. And maybe the dev was young or
just kind of between things and something more important came up or whatever.
It actually takes some thoughtfulness to be a professional freelancer. Can be
harder sometimes than it looks.

Cheap overseas developer talent is fine. But. There's also a huge value to
finding people who you can sit down with and talk to. Meet. Get to know a bit.
Professional freelancers will absolutely help naive clients identify and avoid
pitfalls from the start. We (professional freelancers) have already fallen
into them all and generally have the scars and callouses to know what it
really takes to produce good software in a freelance environment.
Professionals know how much time and effort it actually takes to do things.
They'll tell you if your "I need a Facebook clone next week" project has any
chance of success. They'll help you with design and they'll help you
understand the trade-offs between money, time, and functionality that all
software projects must make.

Sounds like none of that happened here.

Anyway. This just touched a nerve for me. Maybe I'm totally off base.

~~~
jefurii
From The Article:

> But $7500 in the hole is not much cost to start a technology business.

Unless I missed something, it doesn't sound like they paid the developer much
at all.

~~~
frandroid
7500 / 15 = 500. 500 units times $99 is $50K. With that kind of budget (that's
everything, not just dev time) you can't hire a top-line developer.

~~~
joantune
7500 can get some good (although limited) development done around here
(Portugal). Dunno how much time it would take whatever they needed though

------
edtechdev
Between the port forwarding and security and other kinds of hassles of running
a server in your own house, I just used digitalocean hosting for a minecraft
server for my kid a few years ago, $5 a month. Here's a script to install the
Cuberite version mentioned in the article:
[https://github.com/cuberite/cuberite-
ocean](https://github.com/cuberite/cuberite-ocean)

Now there are free services like Gamocosm which shut down your digitalocean
server when not using it, so that it might only cost $1 or so a month:
[https://gamocosm.com/](https://gamocosm.com/) Meaning it would take 8 years
before it cost as much as a Mineserver box.

~~~
stcredzero
_I just used digitalocean hosting for a minecraft server for my kid a few
years ago, $5 a month._

What are your ping times like?

~~~
sov
Also curious, as I ran a $10 droplet to host a Terraria server and the ping-
times were >200ms from Vancouver, BC to San Fran. Was basically unplayable,
with usage spiking out. Now, it was simultaneously hosting Mumble and an
(effectively blank) node site, but still.

For what it's worth, I also hosted a Starbound server, and so long as people
weren't doing anything crazy and the population never exceeded ~4-5, things
were fine.

~~~
j_mcnally
Home internet should crush those ping times right, because thats how ISP
optimize.

------
pjc50
The main thing that surprises me is how someone can be a tech journalist for
years and then try launching a product using someone else's trademarks, and
not expect to get a cease-and-desist.

~~~
lisper
Cringley is not a single journalist, it's a persona, kind of like the Dread
Pirate Roberts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely)

~~~
smacktoward
Yes, but Mark Stephens (this Cringely) is arguably _the_ Cringely, in that he
was the one who made the column popular, and he published a book ( _Accidental
Empires_ : [http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-
Co...](http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-
Competition/dp/0887308554)) under the name. So there have been other
Cringelys, but when people say "Robert X. Cringely," they almost always mean
Mark Stephens.

------
sethish
I'm disappointed that a respected technology journalist can misapply the term
open source so completely. If he actually meant that java can be decompiled
and therefor is 'open source' then why the hell did he capitalize the phrase?

~~~
gvb
Cringely is more unintentionally entertaining than respected.

------
bad_user
> _Minecraft, which is written in Java, is nominally Open Source_

Minecraft is not open source by OSI's definition and doesn't even have the
source code available. The Minecraft server is distributed as a compiled JAR
file. What does the author talk about?

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
they should have just used a true open-source minecraft:
[https://opensource.com/life/15/9/open-source-alternatives-
mi...](https://opensource.com/life/15/9/open-source-alternatives-minecraft)

~~~
Dylan16807
"Cuberite is licensed under the Apache License V2"

~~~
Dylan16807
Would someone like to explain the downvotes? Claiming that the use of Cuberite
is not "true" open source is like someone in 2011 claiming that a webserver
with SPDY can't be "true" open source because Chrome is proprietary.

~~~
detaro
I assume because Cuberite is only a server component, the examples in the
linked article are all open-source minecraft-style standalone games or
clients.

Most customers probably want Minecraft, with the mods for the original and
such, and not something "minecraft-style", so I don't think that would have
been a good option. Maybe a nice extra, but this project really doesn't look
like it needs "nice extras" that add complexity.

------
shanselman
"Nominally?" Pretty sure no.

"Minecraft, which is written in Java, is nominally Open Source, but there are
some peculiar restrictions on distributing the code."

~~~
levemi
Mincraft is not open source. There's way too much entitlement in this post.
"How dare you make it hard for me to not profit off of your success."

It's very clear in the terms of service that you cannot make money from
Minecraft mods and that only Mojang is allowed to make money from the game. It
has always been this way. It's been in the press many times and anyone wanting
to make money from Minecraft should know this. Making money from the success
of someone else's project should always involve a bit of research.

The ways that people have made money from Minecraft is by providing hosting
and by streaming themselves playing Minecraft and making let's play videos.
Another way is to host your Minecraft mod on adfly and make ad money from the
downloads page. That's pretty much it.

They should have known this beforehand. I knew it and I don't make mods for
Minecraft.

~~~
simonh
All they're really doing is providing another hosting solution. It happens to
be personal hosting. So sure there are differences between this and a hosting
services, but I don't really see a problem.

~~~
levemi
What's in the article sounds like way more than that and it's really the whole
tone of the article that bugs me. Yes Mojang doesn't have to let you use its
IP to help you market your thing. Yes Mojang can dictate the terms of their
product, and no you don't get special treatment because you know people at
Microsoft or have a widely read blog. Like really? The article is dripping
with petulant self-entitlement. It's disgusting and I say that as someone who
usually likes the author.

~~~
Dylan16807
Minecraft certified hardware sounds like a win-win to me. Making that _offer_
is not petulant self-entitlement. You're being ridiculous.

------
hobs
While I am not interested in the specific project, If/when I have kids, I
would gladly pay 7500 dollars to have them excited and apply themselves to a
project with real world business.

To have the realizations the struggles and successes of such a project, and
have that under their belt before they graduate high school is a wonderful
achievement.

What a great project!!

~~~
detaro
There is also ~32000 dollars of other people's money at play. I wouldn't write
this project off as failed yet, but it sounds like an attitude of "it's a fun
project for the kids and we don't really know what we are doing" that doesn't
seem to appreciate this fact. (EDIT: on the other hand, he is backing it up
with extra money, instead of trying to fail out of it cheaply somehow)

The comments on the article are interesting to read, with people arguing both
sides.

~~~
hobs
Agreed, I was commenting on the losing 15 dollars per unit angle, but you are
right that there is a burden of responsibility when using other's money.
Another part of the great lessons here.

------
elbigbad
I have to question the phrase in the second to last paragraph, in the context
of servers disappearing from the net:

"It’s the final bug, . . ."

Uhhhh.....seems optimistic at best especially considering their experience so
far.

~~~
mordocai
While still poor writing, in the paragraph a couple up where they start
talking about it they say:

"What we hope is our final technical problem "

------
habitue
I think it's interesting that he continually says "we" throughout. As if his
kids are really contacting developers and talking with suppliers and mojang
lawyers etc. I'm sure they're doing something meaningful like installing the
software on the boards and assembling them, but it's pretty clear who is doing
the real work

------
ixtli
A few years ago this desire to profit off of minecraft washed over a small
part of the NYC VC scene with a few higher profile firms investigating some
people who said they wanted to "solve" problems with minecraft. Anecdotally I
found that everyone I talked to was doing so because their kid was into it and
that they all looked at me cockeyed when I said "you know that doesn't sound
like something a for-profit company would be ok with."

------
beachstartup
yeah, sounds like a typical month at a startup. don't worry, next month will
be even worse, and you'll probably have even less money.

what's amazing is how few journalists actually have gone through this process,
and how even fewer write about it.

the fact that he wrote a huge blog post about it means he's somehow surprised
it's almost always this hard to do actual work on products and services --
which is why success is so vaunted and worshipped, not because it's fun and
glamorous, but because it's basically getting just the shit kicked out of you
24/7.

------
justinclift
" _His e-mail address is right on the case and if something doesn’t work he
can ssh, telnet, or VNC into the box to fix it._ "

Hopefully the telnet mention is just a stylistic phrase, rather than really
meaning they have a telnet daemon enabled by default.

~~~
atomic_cheese
Based on the rest of the post, I think that hope might be unrealistic.

------
anonbanker
This might be Cringley's first time on the other side of a product launch,
which makes it interesting to watch him eat his share of humble pie after
countless articles opining on someone else's delay in shipping a product.

~~~
gdulli
"[A] new fact has now become painfully clear to me: you don't say you have a
working product unless you really have a working product"[1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely#Controversy)

~~~
duaneb
He has a working product with this blog. It's so entertaining he should get
into doing a satirical Silicon Valley rag.

------
josu
The fact that these kids have been able to develop and distribute a product,
even if they are not making money, is awesome. The experience and skills they
gain with this project will be incredibly valuable for every future projects
and jobs. It would be great if schools could offer this kind of hands-on
experience with real world applications.

------
ludamad
I think that you should have a call for programmers right in your kickstarter.
Not saying it would have worked in this case necessarily, but having someone
actively interested in the project is a great asset.

------
kqr2
Another interesting project post-mortem from Robert Cringely was his ambitious
attempt to design, build and fly an airplane in 30 days as part of a PBS
documentary _Plane Crazy_.

[http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/1998/pulpit_19980724_0005...](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/1998/pulpit_19980724_000578.html)

------
Pfhreak
This is the first time I've heard of Cuberite. I love the concept, but this
has to be a copyright violation, right?

~~~
Dylan16807
Copyright of what, specifically?

~~~
Pfhreak
The protocol that Minecraft developed for their client/server?

~~~
detaro
A network protocol doesn't really have copyright protection, and it seems
unlikely Mojang has anything special in there patented. As long as it is
cleanly reverse engineered there is not much legal attack surface.

------
testmasterflex
There are lot of services out there that do free hosting for minecraft
nowadays, for example: [https://server.pro](https://server.pro) It also gives
you a control panel to control your server, supports plugins and has a handy
web file manager.

------
Pxtl
I'm hearing a lot of gold plating that shouldn't have been in 1.0. Wifi?
Mobile app? A slick server that is incompatible with their admin panel?
Dynamic DNS? Skip those for Mineserver 2.

~~~
tzs
Aren't wifi and a mobile app essential for their target market? The impression
I get from this article, and from going and taking a look at the Kickstarter
campaign, is that a big part of the audience is supposed to be people who
don't know very much about computers and networking. A lot of these people
have a home network that is entirely wifi, running off the wifi router built
into their ISP provided cable modem.

~~~
detaro
If I added it up right, more than half of the backers selected a version
without wifi. And are there really devices around that only provide WLAN and
don't have Ethernet ports?

------
j_mcnally
personally i understand that father is involved and wants to help. But a
valuable lesson would be having the kids write the investor update, learn to
face the failure.

I get that they are only 11, but if your going to have them launch a business
they should learn the ups and the downs. Otherwise just post your prototype on
Hack-a-day and have it be a fun family project.

------
gravypod
I thought you could distribute OpenJDK freely.

~~~
SteveNuts
I think he was talking about the Minecraft server software not being able to
be distributed pre-compiled. Not the runtime environment.

I could have misread it though.

~~~
duskwuff
I'm pretty sure what they're referring to is a quirk of how Minecraft mods
work.

The official Mojang Minecraft server code is closed-source, and is distributed
as a .jar file. It does not natively support mods. Mods work by decompiling
the Minecraft server .jar, patching it, and recompiling it.

The results of this process are non-redistributable. That's probably what the
article is (confusedly) referring to.

------
revelation
Sounds about right, kickstart an idea you had, then try and pay a bunch of
consultants and hired coders to make it a reality.

~~~
unethical_ban
Guess he should solder his own mobo, and pull himself off the ground from his
bootstraps, like real startups do.

Or, like most businesses, contract out specialty work and put pieces together
into something new.

------
xupybd
Looks like they ran into some issues. But an amazing experience for the young
boys. I'm not sure many would have that sort of life experience before their
first job, let alone before college. Well done to the parents for helping
their children to do this.

------
3327
Minecraft codebase is rewritten in C++. New additions of minecraft will be C++

~~~
sinistersnare
This is 100% false.

Minecraft has a 'Windows edition' that is written in C++, and a main version
that is in Java. Both version will continue to exist, and be updated, AIUI.

~~~
AgentME
I can't believe that they'll maintain both in perpetuity. The Windows edition
will probably become the official version the moment that it's feature
complete, and the Java version will become the "legacy version" that's never
updated again.

~~~
detaro
Not in perpetuity, but until it is there the Java version will be further
developed, and there has been no indication at all when this might be the
case. I'd expect the console versions to be integrated before they touch the
main one.

------
hoodoof
For all the people with negative things to say, tell me, does your business
ideas run without a hitch?

~~~
chasing
You're right. No one who has ever done a wrong thing is ever allowed to have a
negative opinion about what someone else is up to. ;-)

------
spamlord
What a shocking surprise Cringely has no earthly idea how tech companies
actually get things done. He's becoming more irrelevent every day, thankfully.

