High-performance Minecraft server fork born from the Bukkit DMCA drama, now the dominant server software with a 2024 hard fork from Spigot's closed development model.
PaperMC is a high-performance fork of Spigot (itself a fork of CraftBukkit/Bukkit) for Minecraft servers. It features async chunk loading, entity activation range optimization, improved redstone handling, and an extended plugin API. Written in Java, it supports thousands of community plugins.
The Minecraft server modding community has one of the most dramatic fork histories in open source. It begins with Bukkit, a community project that provided a modding API for Minecraft servers. In 2012, Mojang secretly acquired the Bukkit project, but this wasn't publicly known until 2014 when the original Bukkit team announced retirement.
When Mojang revealed their ownership and revoked the team's access, contributor Wesley Wolfe (Wolvereness) filed DMCA takedown notices against CraftBukkit. His argument: he had contributed GPL-licensed code to CraftBukkit, and Mojang's proprietary Minecraft server code couldn't legally be distributed alongside it. The DMCA was successful, and all Bukkit/CraftBukkit downloads were pulled from the internet on September 3, 2014.
Md_5 and the Spigot team responded with BuildTools — a clever legal workaround that compiled Spigot from source on the user's own machine, meaning no pre-built binary containing Mojang's code was ever distributed. This kept the community alive but Spigot's development model remained opaque: new Minecraft version support was developed behind closed doors.
PaperMC emerged in 2016 as a performance-focused fork of Spigot, initially just applying optimization patches. But it grew into something much larger. Paper rewrote significant portions of the server for better performance, added async chunk loading, improved the plugin API, and attracted a massive community.
On December 13, 2024, PaperMC announced a full hard fork from Spigot. The team cited Spigot's closed development model as the primary reason — they couldn't begin work on new Minecraft versions until Spigot released their internal updates, and Spigot's API decisions were made without community input. The hard fork makes Paper fully independent of Spigot's update cycle.
Mojang secretly acquires the Bukkit project
Bukkit team announces retirement; Mojang reveals ownership
Wolvereness files DMCA takedown; all Bukkit/CraftBukkit/Spigot downloads removed
Spigot introduces BuildTools as a legal workaround
PaperMC created as a performance fork of Spigot
PaperMC announces full hard fork from Spigot, citing closed development model
PaperMC became the most widely used Minecraft server software, running the majority of modded Minecraft servers worldwide. The Bukkit DMCA saga became a landmark case study in open-source licensing conflicts, demonstrating how GPL and proprietary code mixing can create legal time bombs. The BuildTools workaround became a template for other projects facing similar distribution challenges.