# Mission

> *all software should be free and open-source* — racked.ru

Human-centric, fully open source, free for everyone. Microsoft-free, privacy-first, no telemetry, no mandatory accounts.

Tagline: *experience the game the way it should have always been*.

## What that means in practice

- **No paywalls.** No premium plugins, no donor perks that change gameplay, no pay-to-win.
- **No closed-source plugins.** If a plugin can't be replaced by a FOSS equivalent, it doesn't ship.
- **No telemetry, no analytics, no data harvesting.** Players are not the product.
- **Credit where it's due.** Free to use ≠ free to plagiarize. Every plugin author, every dependency, every config we adapt: attributed by name and link. Attribution is not a tax on freedom — it's the bare minimum of respect.
- **Everything reproducible.** Anyone can clone this repo, follow the deploy doc, and stand up an identical server.
- **Companion launcher is FOSS too.** `server-client-launcher` ships alongside this repo — one-click connect, no manual modpack juggling, no proprietary client mods.
- **Configs are public.** Every gameplay knob, every plugin setting is in `config/`, diffable, forkable, criticizable.
- **Migration history is public.** Why we left Lands. Why we replaced LitePlaytimeRewards. Why we don't run CosmicGuard. All in `docs/migrations/`.

## Acknowledged exceptions

Honesty matters more than purity-signaling. There is currently **one** plugin that is not OSI-FOSS but is kept for operational reasons:

- **CoreProtect-CE** — source-available (`all rights reserved`), not MIT/GPL. Kept because: (a) per-player rollback reliability is mission-critical for player protection, (b) Prism (the MIT alternative) has documented edge-case bugs in sign/container/entity restoration, (c) source is still readable + auditable. Revisit when Prism reaches feature parity at scale.

This is the one. Adding more "operational exceptions" would defeat the mission. New plugins must be FOSS unless they replace a FOSS plugin that's worse on a *gameplay* axis (per policy below).

## Plugin policy

| Tier | Action |
|------|--------|
| FOSS, GH source, active maintainer | **First choice** — adopt freely |
| FOSS but unmaintained / archived | Use cautiously, prefer fork |
| Proprietary but free | Avoid — find FOSS replacement |
| Proprietary paid | **Never ship** — replace even if already paid for |
| Custom dev agreement | Only if FOSS replacement genuinely doesn't exist; document fully |

**Precedent:** Lands plugin was paid for, deployed, working — and still removed in favor of LandClaimPlugin (FOSS) because owning a license isn't the same as owning the code. Open source wins even after sunk cost. See [`docs/migrations/lands-to-landclaim.md`](docs/migrations/lands-to-landclaim.md).

## Companion projects

**`server-client-launcher`** — separate repo. Players install once, get:
- Pre-configured `mc.racked.ru` entry (no IP-typing)
- Performance-optimized client
- Automatic mod/resource-pack delivery
- Voice chat, realistic sounds, immersive mods (planned)
- No Microsoft account, no Mojang account — pick a username, play

**`client`** — separate repo. The optimized client itself.

All three (server / client / launcher) are open source and forkable. Run your own copy — branding, scope, plugin set, all yours.

Site: https://racked.ru

## On freedom and credit

Open source isn't anti-author. The whole point is that code belongs to everyone — author included. We will:

- Attribute every plugin, mod, config snippet, and design decision to its source.
- Link upstream repos prominently, never hide them.
- Surface dev names in `docs/plugins/<name>.md` AND in the README plugin index.
- Keep `THANKS.md` (or equivalent) listing humans whose work this server runs on.
- If we fork or modify a plugin, retain the original LICENSE + attribution headers, mark our changes clearly, and link back to upstream.

You can fork this repo, run your own copy, sell hosting on top of it (where licenses allow), strip the branding — that's freedom. What you can't do without acknowledging the work is take credit for someone else's code. The two principles aren't in tension; they're the same principle.

## Why this matters

Minecraft's plugin ecosystem has drifted toward paid resource sites and closed-source anti-cheats. That's a tax on everyone who wants to host a community server. This project is a counter-statement: a complete, audit-able, free-to-run server stack that nobody owes anyone money to operate.

Fork it. Run it. Share it. Improve it. Own your server.

## Contributing

- PRs welcome on configs, plugin selections, docs, scripts.
- Plugin additions must declare license + acquisition source per [docs/PLUGINS.md schema](docs/PLUGINS.md).
- Proprietary additions will be rejected unless they replace a FOSS plugin that's worse on a *gameplay* axis (not a paywalled-feature axis).
- Telemetry, analytics, or call-home code in any form: rejected.
