[sword-devel] Project "Free Scriptures" started

Tue Feb 25 06:49:51 MST 2014

Hi Jaak,

I've been around CrossWire for quite a few years without actually being
part of the official group, so I think my opinion might be helpful here as
I don't have any turf to defend (CrossWire regulars: please chip in if I'm
misrepresenting anything).

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 7:18 PM, Jaak Ristioja <jaak at ristioja.ee> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 25.02.2014 02:21, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> > I hesitate to even humor yet another response to unwarranted
> > criticism.
> >
> > Let's just say what you really mean:  You think people have
> > trouble contributing to the SWORD project because we don't use your
> > choice of source control software and because we have a very tight
> > approval process for acceptance of code into our core engine.
>
> If you think criticism on part of VCS and patch approval process is
> unwarranted, what are your arguments?
>

I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticise choices such as VCS and the
patch approval process.
What is unreasonable is to expect project maintainers to listen just
because you have made that criticism.  SWORD is a mature, feature-ful and
complex library, and as result I'm fairly happy with a default attitude of
"if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I could be wrong, but my gut feel is that there are not many in the
different front end teams that have actually made changes to SWORD, and I
don't see that changes to VCS / patch approval process are likely to change
that.  While sharing code is good in theory, trying to make changes /
improvements which are acceptable to all frontends is a lot harder than
just making something which will work for your personal frontend (I've
tried).  As a result, unless we want to have a different fork of SWORD for
every frontend, with the resulting chaos, changes to SWORD affect more
people and so will be harder to get in (and should have a higher quality
control / review barrier).

It's also unreasonable to connect these choices to the "freeness" or
otherwise of the software.  As with all GPL software, you have the absolute
freedom to modify it to your heart's content and to host it on a different
version control system (though you will have to identify how it is changed
and possibly rename it).  If you want those changes to go back to the main
repository, then people need to check that they work and that they don't
break anything else.  I would say most large open source projects have a
fairly careful review process, some more stringent than CrossWire's.
There's nothing special about the way CrossWire has done it.  Contributing
code back to open source software is not a right - it's a privilege, and
the privilege has to be earned.

Jon

> Blessings,
> Jaak
>
>
> On 25.02.2014 02:21, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> > Jaak,
> >
> > I hesitate to even humor yet another response to unwarranted
> > criticism.
> >
> > Let's just say what you really mean:  You think people have
> > trouble contributing to the SWORD project because we don't use your
> > choice of source control software and because we have a very tight
> > approval process for acceptance of code into our core engine.
> >
> > I am sorry, but these things are not on our agenda to change.
> >
> > Troy
> >
> >
> >
> > On 02/24/2014 02:35 AM, Jaak Ristioja wrote: Hi!
> >
> > I must say that although I do not agree with all the criticism of
> > the Sword project I do agree with some of it, and I actually hope
> > that a bit of healthy competition would help both parties.
> >
> > IMHO this again highlights some of the problems of the Sword
> > project which have also been discussed previously: e.g. Sword
> > module formats are not well documented and formalized (making them
> > "unreadable"). In addition, although Sword is GPL, there are many
> > obstacles for outsiders to actually start contributing to the
> > project, hence I somewhat understand why Sword might be perceived
> > as not Free software. The same goes for the distribution (and
> > modification) of modules.
> >
> > It seems to me that the "Free Scriptures" project is an effort to
> > develop a more open project with more freely distributable and
> > modifiable modules. Seems like a good idea to me.
> >
> > Blessings, Jaak
> >
> > PS: Personally I'd consider a BSD/MIT license for the software.
> >
> >
> > On 22.02.2014 22:02, Stephan Kreutzer wrote:
> >>>> Hello,
> >>>>
> >>>> I just want to announce that the project "Free Scriptures"
> >>>> (see http://www.free-scriptures.org) was started some time
> >>>> ago, which has the goal of developing freely licensed
> >>>> software for processing bible texts into various output
> >>>> formats. It will also serve as platform for "language teams"
> >>>> who work on the digitalization, proofreading and reproduction
> >>>> of bible texts of their native language. This way, we hope to
> >>>> establish a repository of public domain and freely licensed
> >>>> bible texts, which are carefully checked and ready for
> >>>> processing. At the same time, the language teams will be
> >>>> responsible for preparing and publishing the bible texts
> >>>> according to the context of their own language. The
> >>>> international "Free Scriptures" platform is intended to help
> >>>> the language-specific "branches" of the project. As we
> >>>> promote free software philosophy and practices in the field
> >>>> of bible software, we're therefore limited to bible
> >>>> translations which are either in the public domain or which
> >>>> are freely licensed initially. Not only are our software
> >>>> tools freely licensed, they're also required to be usable on
> >>>> freely licensed computer software environments. We refuse to
> >>>> use or integrate non-free, restrictive, proprietary
> >>>> software, because digital freedom matters for each and every
> >>>> user, especially if it comes to a highly important topic like
> >>>> the text of the bible. Please note that price isn't an issue
> >>>> at all as we face artificial legal and technical restrictions
> >>>> - freely licensed bible software and bible texts can be used
> >>>> commercially and non-commercially at the same time.
> >>>>
> >>>> Since the SWORD project doesn't seem to be much concerned
> >>>> about digital freedom (no repository of OSIS sources, only
> >>>> unreadable SWORD modules) or the quality of bible texts (no
> >>>> checking, distribution of incorrect texts), I hope you at
> >>>> least don't hinder our efforts, since you too can benefit
> >>>> from them. Probably you may even improve your approach to one
> >>>> which is more compatible with other free (bible) software. If
> >>>> you have some questions or suggestions, please feel free to
> >>>> contact us. We host a discussion board on our website, where
> >>>> guests have write access. At the moment, there are several
> >>>> posts present in German language, which only stay there for
> >>>> the purpose of translation.
> >>>>
> >>>> As a first task, we're working on a tool for converting OSIS
> >>>> to Haggai XML. In the past, we've specified Haggai XML as our
> >>>> own bible text encoding format, which is based on Zefania
> >>>> XML. Since neither Zefania XML nor OSIS are well-designed XML
> >>>> formats for bible text encoding, Haggai XML was intended as
> >>>> an improvement suggestion for Zefania XML. Zefania XML will
> >>>> now get improved to Zefania XML 2014, hopefully by keeping
> >>>> it's basic and primitive structure, which is ideal for the
> >>>> digitalization of old, printed bible texts. If Zefania XML
> >>>> 2014 gets released, we will consider to replace Haggai XML as
> >>>> main input format for our tools by it. As for now, we
> >>>> automatically generate PDF, EPUB2/3 and XHTML from Haggai XML
> >>>> input. In order to do the processing for the German "Offene
> >>>> Bibel" ("Open Bible" - the only freely-licensed modern bible
> >>>> translation in German language, which gets translated
> >>>> collaboratively on Wiki software, providing OSIS output), we
> >>>> work on a simple, basic conversion from OSIS to Haggai XML,
> >>>> so that we can use all of our tools we've developed so far.
> >>>> Those tools will get migrated to "Free Scriptures" within the
> >>>> next time.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Sincerely, Stephan Kreutzer
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> PS: I can't register to your forum, the registration form
> >>>> gives a 404.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________ sword-devel
> >>>> mailing list: sword-devel at crosswire.org
> >>>> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
> >>>> Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above
> >>>> page
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________ sword-devel
> >> mailing list: sword-devel at crosswire.org
> >> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
> >> Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing
> > list: sword-devel at crosswire.org
> > http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions
> > to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iQgcBAEBAgAGBQJTDFHLAAoJELozJlbjIn79NQg//2oxCR8GmIqwBJTyeC+5Ygkh
> A1jmgj6AuIb8Wwk32UAyhd1V1kpEunH+XlP7HP0622jQXwj0UfhG62ulTzUdCeS8
> quxvrRyIzw8fiV5dPrm9icabU8uz/rUKeXuSc1ACvHhXzTc9SLeFxkPaKomSCmpm
> ABYkoavvaDgxec+FOjbW9ql8H52Gf07VH7+u8ZuTvP7BaTb+L69AcNaz1E0OsZHo
> SuMp10ezrDHhDwuqfsDO0Wi35OPxwiFKZ4LywGYbs0K0xfBkJkJH/iGJZzixr41r
> C/sSIfdq3R3Jaw5YR9k9L/1dZeBD0EtWPV3qBzPWtiuxZSWdEDvoBA16GhgRE0jP
> 1kjfDX7d5kvUTmU/Kzxj6mKBqLeQ5TGz8ipkdxMBz0JC3b2IsRrGRgOkfaSA3Cj2
> +Zmlwie9OhOmwM1j3R/8RviRhgWEZRSy/XomJgKPMzqigR5RRzU3vytd8By8KKxJ
> VmGrOJ3kc7BYPIQCIm6OM9nit3Qsw9aNd1fAQ5h/Q3fTEdno1qITJv5A0KIbt2ie
> eoWMzUAG0imw/jQsZ7CxPuI6OcSukWN1qt66gjawH8fr9EgaeBejw6MSKx8kk3ew
> BOF0tepotYlPCzDv390VWTVQP8UiLvJwGGI1tPcZbrc/PrxW3w9FPLvVMCHF5fer
> 3G4T8VDx2BjAhhCNRnnOxIwcemO2wkCRN7wFhBlNRZSvHqKOXCR4XvZFgvZYHkZ8
> /0KKggsTjK1W6zRYCnia7FE7BHOvd2iD8GVMe+LEZd9Fljw5JIoCxCV5in/ev5g4
> FRtpZklFy0ZRRFpFVfrpXQwKiaRD2HEffN9mG9cjH1w1Hqg+/SNtLLpuh+fYLcRV
> uHPnT1/yUf/H6/YyeX92u34050/wvo9LtQTAmt0X3KE+E6eQ9QKOxQmVfZVwX26M
> 7CONWSwTHZt35E4gPl+xI1Rx1fzXUKkC/HqUz/+zhUKKW+qu2EdPkp/fFWwUJNyr
> 5VXUgYrae31X/vPy30uBR9bFBcL16vaYSOepYwXGOKi1S2hmQ/fhfJ3CleUoVCDT
> xIL07h0KBr8103QDakIIAeUzelT6GsstsYw4D0MZ2IinXKKHQTlJFJZayAMxne/1
> 3NMvBBSqiqhkWxrPICkvT3fh4UKTlAA2rgVLWSq2g/MDVIGKHouZySZMqv0ntGTd
> yBFi/Yl2Z7CfYQudM/9wIqho1rEUy8pUNoFMtp/LV6SXfUDvz+kI5sgJMtgcMVho
> CY+psqyuWxyVGjOTBqyaWJ/3A+7tV0aIximGvh7fq31btem6auHsfMrAyT2k6XZr
> N17/vOoQ7ZndcqTxc4Iv60G+5inqSr6ndWW5rV/nsRGUTDTQSgOrVpdv0mLEAhrq
> juqKev4764dXCyvtm5g0kjz53VdJJg7yKZnDMyHdO6nEY7FwQLOShFrPumrRwui4
> 3YEIWtZ0KCQgGOnzoGg+GVSfm6hMCQ4fOz76XMQ8SAXV/g9OphMMqT0qenjYvr+C
> h9r5m/Q17wNQAjw1QYLJfMCwPEI6pMJIc5SMdFwSJgpLuN6qB6eXFF9sLAO8hgRX
> EkRmsAkY7Jye1oavg3xg62zP7Yf79jsu8bYOawKMILfonPNMqx2XgN2za5xPR/+x
> ktvy/Tn977mgq5QOOoVTYS71hh+MXMWo5s9fgsk8QFQRbdY3undNeoZEAtJDNDw/
> 0Dfwo4O7rgGkysgUiUcnIWSB5zJEea7gaWUpaBd/PpR75APj7FVRlVnvWVYBMEL9
> 1ag9rbzAm3DTNluE6GTAQ0437yw0NieKMaliO4Jyq8qsN5bSvTrSpQ+1N42M3W55
> l96M259XVP0QJyxLebUnQDfL9e4w15vW1X+a02FmWVknrtezqQTzNy0rx6IkgnxX
> TwA0VUpyLBAIiOGme3qQ8DKLFjK6I1vNYLunPtsVAaV66B2BlgR9NCJUjWPKcKZ5
> rzjUVgweSCGXTJ9gZ8YKt4xN92t6UNxUG9NoS0MXu5qk5sL7gn2mNClgB7X00n6Y
> gu/xmNcHOAWvwTwRipSiLTRc/UYhiizAMfOoGHQ/neMHAu0l7OA+j1woW9MjOYzM
> S05PBddHdFvvtJFsmaXF1wNOoghbDu9IQuuc/uc1yVnP9EcAAtW0fgKxwhd43jVk
> E0xFhthXYfHwse8COqXjNCaaW/7TGar99scLoHcAIFRlEDBkEaTTydNajiKZ3VS6
> DY3qvU32Z2fz5lOdqUfwr5tFd07tx/mCO2Azk7gNUSkmhLkwdYBPK54buuHZ6y4u
> jDcX3a9nZMmZl8Uqu+blI0dU3OE48TALZkwym5UsEGT6AJAZjy1rdxHQRuPy7Nhc
> Uwv/eEUtjqEpkJHGrcRWTERHI5hQlOxPoZuYegF9RXgVR0gxeJ3JG/NMQ8wmvle5
> Q+AMKVVTOXtB6+TQ3MF3ZrBBOeB/kcAJfHEajKHZEWPXkWDNmZYqwqL/bGcKXATP
> t7Pre3+BOsYwanTdojLAdlWxqmaE+2IGWGMi2fiGR4E5gdK+t7gtm4SZxaK6Vowr
> 11Q08FHyquYha8cM+2Ir60tttOEVA1EHa89jWIEnbLXOr9k/Fq6fC0jlD8AQ6dfL
> jx2Wh27F7+0TJIn8/jkfMFkk0NvhhGDnJSmqxwhpGvJjvE1xtMqKzCyBwgFxayup
> x/zZxP4HbqejbrovW4StnOH344aSkortvhOGgjHJyK7ZZjKtSTVmziSiSumo63S4
> xB31wcqr9LoX3cgO4JX6
> =oLX8
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel at crosswire.org
> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
> Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/sword-devel/attachments/20140226/64be2b81/attachment-0001.html>