I'm betting it's only a matter of time before Microsoft drops Java and switches Minecraft over to C# or some other CLR language (or puts resources into a sequel of sorts that does the same). With that will probably come a visible source (though not necessarily open source unless the world is really lucky) development model.
When Microsoft first acquired Minecraft, I made this prediction rather fearfully, but if Microsoft's embracing of open-source continues (without the extending and extinguishing, preferably), this might end up being a good thing. Kerbal Space Program has proven to be a pretty good example of a Minecraft-scale modding community around a game built heavily on C# (by way of Unity3D), and would be a pretty good case study for this sort of thing.
This might put a damper in existing modding efforts, though (but on the other hand, there are projects like IKVM.NET that implement Java on the .NET CLR, so it's at least hypothetically possible to support existing mods on a hypothetical Minecraft#).
When Microsoft first acquired Minecraft, I made this prediction rather fearfully, but if Microsoft's embracing of open-source continues (without the extending and extinguishing, preferably), this might end up being a good thing. Kerbal Space Program has proven to be a pretty good example of a Minecraft-scale modding community around a game built heavily on C# (by way of Unity3D), and would be a pretty good case study for this sort of thing.
This might put a damper in existing modding efforts, though (but on the other hand, there are projects like IKVM.NET that implement Java on the .NET CLR, so it's at least hypothetically possible to support existing mods on a hypothetical Minecraft#).