Minecraft Forums

Why? Because they happen to have created an idea that mojang also thought of? Notch said they weren't even aware of the mod before that. The times they have included features because of a mod, they have specifically poitned it out, acknowledged the mod, and even worked with the creators of the mods to some degree.
We all saw how many radical changes the potion system underwent before they settled on the current system. If they were copying ideas from mods, you would expect them to have a clearer idea of what they were doing.
In the email, they accused them of stealing the cauldron idea from better than wolves. As if better than wolves invented cauldrons, and it is not a stereotypical feature that you would associate with potions. Even though the better than wolves cauldron and the mojang cauldron do very different things in very different ways.

If anything, the parrellel development of ideas is an interestin phenomenon, and well-documented in many contexts. As the saying goes"An idea whose time has come". There are many instances where the ground is ripe for developing a certain idea. multiple people, unrelated, in different parts of the world, will often come up with an idea at nearly the same time. There are several documented cases of such ideas beating each other to patent by mere hours. Hence, it is very reasonable to expect, that given minecraft as the base to work from, and a few thousand modders, somebody is going to implement something mojang is adding. you can't have modders explore a few thousand possible development paths for minecraft then act surprised when mojang takes one of them, and accuse them of copying it.

I also don't understand you accusations of Notch being a man-child in relation to this. He posted an amusing poor, ranting email. I don't know how you can take that seriously. Its mostly him randomly bashing elements of the game without and justification. For instance, he dismessed the entire ender realm as pointless, even though we have only the sketchiest idea of what it is. He calls baby animals a complete rip-off of the mod, except for the parts where it is different, as if there are a huge variety of ways you would expect them to do it. I cannot take him seriously at all. "There is no good reason to have HARDCORE MODE". Really? There are a ton of people enjoying it, and it has been requested and planned for ages. All I can do is laugh at the email.