I host my own Minecraft server and have online-mode set to false in serer.properties.
Now, I want others to join but I don’t expect them to buy a legitimate copy of Minecraft. Isn’t that why we use this setting online-mode?
In the ol’ days (1.8 and post), I remember using some copy of Minecraft where I could just change my username on every start of this client, and join my server. Period. Done. I want the same again. Is this possible? In a non-illegal way? What about grey-area? I don’t care about security or impersonation (partly).
Maybe not, I think. If third party launchers are legal, and one of these supports offline playing, then it can be used for all online-mode=false servers. But this requires one initial login from a legitimate account. This means you have to give your password to whomever wants to join your server.