[jsword-devel] Future Direction for BibleDesktop

[DM Smith]

On Mar 1, 2009, at 9:33 AM, Adam Thomas wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Recently I began thinking about the current state of BibleDesktop,  
> its community, and the vision held by the leaders of the project. I  
> want to contribute more to the project but find myself struggling to  
> sacrifice the time on a project that seems to be unknown to the  
> masses and have outdated goals. As a result a few questions came to  
> mind that I would like to pose to the project's community members.

We'd love to have you contribute as you can!

>
>
> BibleDesktop appears to be THE reference implementation for JSword  
> to both act as a functioning application and a JSword API testing  
> sandbox. I think thats great and it makes complete sense to do that,  
> however I am saddened to see the mission statement and roadmap  
> "vision statements" fall behind. Maybe the website isn't getting  
> updated to reflect the latest goals or vision? I simply would like  
> some clarification on whether BibleDesktop is going to be moving  
> forward any time soon.

Right now, I am the lead developer for JSword and BibleDesktop. For  
all practical purposes, I am the only one making code changes to  
BibleDesktop. I do accept patches and commit them after reviewing  
them. (Joe Walker was the original lead.)

Peter leads the efforts to localize BD and JSword into other  
languages. In practical terms, that means, if someone is willing to do  
the effort, he will make the commits after reviewing them.

Tonny is working on AlKitab and supplies patches to JSword and common.

Brian is working on FireBible and also supplies patches.

Others have supplied patches from time to time.

I haven't revisited the vision statement in quite some time, so  
specifics might be/are out of date. After discussion on this list, I'd  
be glad to accept patches against it.


>
>
> The Future Direction page has statements such as "Able to use any  
> 1.4.2 Java runtime, with GJC being a specific target". Really, even  
> with the release of OpenJDK and newer Open Source platforms that are  
> supported on Mac, you still want to mess with GJC?

This goal statement is outdated. Joe and I wanted to have BD/JSword be  
completely free and open. It would have been better to state that.

The statement regarding gjc was that it was the only free/open  
implementation. But it suffered that it did not support Swing and thus  
Bible Desktop. Now that OpenJDK is available, this a lot less  
important. JSword/BibleDesktop run well with it. But it has only been  
available for a short period of time.

It's not that I want to "mess" with GJC. But, if gjc ever gets to the  
point that it has a full Swing implementation, then I'd like to  
support it as well.


>
>
> I also understand the current or old reasons for using JDK 1.4.x,  
> but especially since Sun has moved that version into its effective  
> end-of-life phase wouldn't it be wise to attempt migration? Sun made  
> me register on their site simply because I was attempting to  
> download an outdated JDK. I think they made me register so they  
> could track how many people are still actively using the outdated  
> JDK. Regardless of their reason, do we really want to be hanging on  
> to that platform? I'm not advocating bleeding-edge, or even leading- 
> edge, simply somewhat current would be nice and still allow the  
> maximum number of users to take advantage of BibleDesktop.

There are only one reason to hang on to JDK 1.4.2: MacOSX 10.3.

Our stated goal is that after Bookmarks are implemented, we'll move to  
Java 1.5. Again the reason not to move to Java 1.6 is MacOS 10.4.

Basically, I see the addition of Bookmarks as making BibleDesktop as  
fairly feature complete. At that time, it would have enough features  
that I would have not qualms about leaving it as a legacy  
implementation for legacy OS users.

At one point I updated JSword, Common, Bible Desktop, ... fully to  
Java 1.5. I found that there was no performance improvement. The  
features of Java 1.5 were syntactic sugar that slightly improved code  
quality. (It did spot some bugs!) If I had replace StringBuffer, I  
might have seen some.

But I got numerous support requests from those using Mac OS 10.3, that  
I reverted the changes.


>
>
> I am also very saddened that BibleDesktop does not appear in the  
> repositories for Linux distros like Ubuntu by default. Last time I  
> checked there wasn't a .deb package for BibleDesktop. GnomeSword and  
> BibleTime both steal the show for users who don't realize that  
> BibleDesktop is out there as an alternative. I'm not saying we are  
> in a competition, but simply saying wouldn't it be nice to allow  
> users to use our product? They can't use it if they don't see it in  
> the repository listing.

There are two parts to this. Until recently, Java (that could run BD)  
was not available as part of the core of any distribution. Under  
Debian/Ubuntu the version of BT and GS were very out-dated and this  
was a frustration to the BT and GS developers. Peter started the ball  
rolling to get this fixed. The Debian freeze for the next version was  
coming up soon, so there was a concerted effort to get these current.

I am a part of that effort and would like to see BD be inculded in the  
distribution. I have no experience with Debian or Ubuntu packaging, so  
I rely on others to help. Daniel Glassey has volunteered in the past  
and I think he'd still be willing to help.

Anyway, given the time constraints toward the freeze, getting BD in  
was not possible. It would be reasonable to get it going now.

There is a mailing list for this if you are interested: pkg-crosswire- 
devel [at] lists.alioth.debian.org

Regarding Fedora/RedHad and other RPM systems, the issue is that  
JPackage does not contain a JavaTar package. Once that is solved, it  
would be relatively simple to package BD/JSword as an RPM. I'm willing  
to be the owner of the package and have started conversations with the  
JPackage folks regarding this.


>
>
> I am not expressing these concerns in anger, but rather trying to  
> "feel" the community for their perspective and visions for this  
> project. I would really like to rekindle my interest in developing  
> for this project, but currently can't get the motivation since to me  
> it feels like the BibleDesktop application is growing stagnant. I  
> realize many of the decisions were made in an effort to reach users  
> running old machines on a variety of platforms, but who says we have  
> to throw away what we've already built?

In a way, BD development is stagnant. Last year, I was unable to spend  
much time with it. Too many family/work obligations and other SWORD  
efforts took me away from it. Right now, I have more time, but I still  
have two other SWORD efforts I am working on. (The NAS Bible and  
lexicons; and changes to osis2mod)

>
>
> Maybe I am totally out of place saying this and nobody else agrees  
> with me? Maybe I should go off and start my own project that meets  
> my vision? However, I would really like to contribute to THIS  
> project since you guys have already done so much great work and I  
> don't think that building a new car is the solution when an oil  
> change and tire rotation is all that is required.

What is your vision? To make BD more visible? Then go for it! Is it to  
improve BD by adding new features? Then go for it!

Let's use this list as a place to discuss your ideas.

The way it works here is that after you have submitted enough quality  
patches, you'd be given commit privs.

>
>
> Let's make BibleDesktop a well known reference implementation and  
> further more let's make it a well known application to end users!  
> I'll certainly help, but it won't work if I am the only one with  
> this vision.

I share this vision, but I have not pursued it.

The road map reflects my interests and how I would address the Jira  
issues. Part of the road map is that after adding Bookmarks, we'll  
revisit the GUI to replace the HTML renderer with a native browser.  
This is critical for RtoL texts and many other things. That means that  
we might replace Swing with SWT/JFace/RCP.

The other wish I have is that JSword could be used on a mobile device.  
I'm not sure if this is realistic.


>
>
> Warm Regards,
> Adam Thomas

Thank you so much!

Working together to advance His Kingdom,
	DM