[bt-devel] Integration into KDE (e.g. KDEEDU)

[heiko.evermann at gmx.de]

Hi David, hi Joachim,
> On Tuesday 31 May 2005 04:33 pm, Joachim Ansorg wrote:
> > Hi Heiko, David,
> > I have several problems including BibleTime into KDE:
> >  -Man power. We just have one developer actively working on the project's
> > code and doing the organisational things. My time is limited in the time
> > I have tests in university and I got more of it in the vacations. So that
> > doesn't fir well with the KDE schedule where we may not add new things or
> > have to fix stuff in a limited period of time.
>
> But then again with the greater exposure may get us more volunteers which
> means more manpower. If nothing else it's a greater pool of people who
> would be able to test and find bugs, like the chapter highlight bug that
> plagued us until  I went in and put debugging out put on it to see what was
> going on.
Usually changes within KDE should not impose too big changes in the 
applications. And just in case it does, the one who introduces changes will 
have some responsibility for cleaning up. I experienced that when I changed 
something in the way translations are loaded. (Since then you can give a list 
of languages that you understand, and translations of e.g. menus will be 
taken from this list on an entry by entry base. (Before that the situation 
was different: as soon as an app has a translation that was begun, you only 
got this translation or English, where your translation has a gap.) This 
introduced some technical problems for languages that go right to left. It 
was my change, it was my bug and it was my responsability. If bibletime was 
part of KDE, others who introduce changes that are incompatible to bibletime, 
would have to share the responsibility to clean up. But I think that 
responsibility does not extend to other applications that are not directly 
part of KDE. In other (shorter) words: your position concerning changes 
within KDE would be better if you were part of KDE.
>
> >  -My faith :) Although I don't see a problem to use BibleTime somewhere
> > to support christian in the best way and I even think offering a Quran
> > module might be a valuable ressource for (some) christians. But I will
> > never remove anything like the Bible study howto or the daily tips which
> > include scripture quotes from the standard BibleTime package. And having
> > these things in it will surely offend the (mostly, I guess) atheistic KDE
> > developers, translators and users all over the world so they'd remove
> > that stuff. -We'd loose our independence as a project. We'd be forced to
> > follow guidelines, feature plans, and more which are not made by
> > christians. I fear that our motivation and plans will collide with KDE's
> > understanding of development.
The Bible study handbook is a valid point. But I do not know how many of KDEs 
developers are atheistic. And I doubt that they would just delete that stuff 
from bible time. I even think that the community would object to such 
behaviour. The main question is whether or not they would accept bible time. 
If they do, I would expect those developers who are not part of the bibetime 
team to leave that application in peace. I would consider it rude for other 
people to come and change my applications. e.g. Anyone who changes the Low 
Saxon translation has to discuss that with the Low Saxon translation team. 

Another thing about translations: I think it is not such a problem that there 
are atheist translators. I (as a translator) would not translate an app that 
I really do not like. And if they make errors, there will be users in that 
language who will point them to their errors. Christians in that language 
will use bibletime and they will notice. Deliberate mistranslations cannot be 
hidden and will shed a bad light on deliberate mistranslators. 

My advice is very simple:
1) Pray about it. Pray for a miracle.
2) Joachim as team leader should write a friendly E-mail about bibletime, what 
it is and a short intro about its religious position to 
kde-core-devel at mail.kde.org. He should not tell that we would like to include 
it into KDE, but just ask whether KDE would like to include bibletime. (It is 
in KDE's interest to include good applications! We have an offer, and THEY 
are the  ones who want to improve KDE.) And then just wait for whatever 
happens.
If the religious position of bibletime is a problem for them, KDE will not get 
it. 

Kind regards,

Heiko Evermann