> But we encourage people to get creative both in Minecraft and with Minecraft – so in 2019 we tried to make this tedious process a little easier by releasing “obfuscation mappings”. These mappings were essentially a long list that allowed people to match the obfuscated terms to un-obfuscated terms. This alleviated the issue a little, as modders didn’t need to puzzle out what everything did, or what it should be called anymore. But why stop there?
Indeed, why did they even bother with this half-measure in the first place?
I wouldn't worry too much about it breaking anything with how version-specific modding already is. And by the time the full release is out, I'm sure every tool will have updated based on the new names from the snapshots.
If my memory serves, the stated justification for not going open source was copyright and trademark protection. Apparently, that is no longer a concern, if it ever really was.
Now I'm bracing for them to drop support for Java Edition entirely and go strictly Bedrock in a couple of years.
Indeed, why did they even bother with this half-measure in the first place?