[Fwd: [sword-devel] FACTS]

[Jerry Hastings]

At 12:06 AM 1/6/2003 -0500, David's Mailing List and Spam Receiver wrote:
>...
>The hebrew dictionay has this note at the bottom,
>"The Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon is Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon;
>this is keyed to the "Theological Word Book of the Old Testament." These
>files are considered public domain"
>
>Food for thought.

If they produced these files themselves then that may be useful information 
if you get and use the files from their own server. If they didn't produce 
these files or you get them from some other source it is less certain what 
you actually have. There are files out there that claim to be from Bible 
Foundation, but BF never had them. And then there is Vine's. BF took that 
file down because it had copyright restored, but you can download that file 
from many places that claim it is still PD.

If you want to be sure about the state of a work, go to the source, and 
then, verify it against a printed PD version. It would be good if The SWORD 
Project could have all the modules verified as true to their PD origins by 
working with something like CCEL. Put the text up and let people proofread 
it. Even better if you start with new scans and proofread them. This way 
verified works can be produced that we know had nothing to do with other 
electronic versions, even if what is produced is 100% the same. This will 
allow more modules to be distributed without having to have special 
agreements so not to offend "good guys" that believe they need to give 
permission and get credit.

Even if you have talked to the source of an electronic version and all is 
cool with that source, but you copy the work of a CD that came from third 
party, that party may, rightly or wrongly, take issue with you taking it 
from their CD. They may call it stealing. Better to skip the other party.

Jerry