[jsword-devel] [sword-devel] RIP Chris Little

[Chris Burrell]

Thanks for forwarding Troy. Sad to hear but good that he's with our Lord.

On Mon, 5 Aug 2024, 23:53 Troy A. Griffitts, <scribe at crosswire.org> wrote:

> Chris was a dear friend and brother who I could always count on to do
> things right. The early days of visiting him in San Francisco and white
> boarding SWORD ideas will forever be some of my most favorite times with
> this project. May the Lord bless his family and may Chris be in awe of our
> Lord in perfect peace and joy.
>
>
>
> On August 6, 2024 00:17:32 GMT+02:00, Peter von Kaehne <refdoc at gmx.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear friends and CrossWire colleagues
>>
>> This is to inform you that Chris Little , one of the earliest CrossWire
>> contributors and team members has passed away aged only 47, leaving behind
>> his widow Michelle and two young sons.
>>
>> Troy will be able to tell us exactly when Cheis joined but it was I think
>> early, very early, in the 1990s.
>>
>> When I joined in 2004 Chris was the highly experienced, sometimes a bit
>> surly and intimidating, always exceedingly thorough but ultimately
>> supremely supportive and helpful module master.
>>
>> He had single-handedly moved our module base from the usual and common at
>> that time for Bible software projects with a haphazard standard of textual
>> encoding, shoddy copyright policies and careless copying between projects
>> to the highest standards deserving of the divine texts we were trying to
>> share and facilitate to be studied.
>>
>> Much of what makes CrossWire modules and software even today still
>> special was based on or made real by Chris’ work and contribution -
>> starting with OSIS XML itself, our main encoding standard, for which he was
>> a key contributor, moving across our copyright policies, our many
>> versification systems, canons and book orders, and the ability to bridge
>> and jump between such versifications easily. A lot of this started with
>> careful and incredibly detailed work by Chris who assessed the landscape
>> and laid foundations which have lasted through several decades - something
>> quite uncommon in software matters.
>>
>> I had many exchanges with Chris, sometimes and particularly at the
>> beginning of my own time contributing I was bitterly frustrated by his
>> detailed and relentless approach , which contrasted seemingly sharply with
>> my own desire to see things done.
>>
>> Sometimes I became exasperated by his to me seemingly abrasive tone - but
>> increasingly I started to seek him out and learned that his counsel was
>> kind, wise and solid and his decisions at many places the exact needed and
>> only way to do justice to the texts we wanted to share and the Lord we
>> wanted to serve. And he was kind, very kind, even though one could easily
>> miss that behind his technical detail, his strongly expressed views and his
>> sometimes unsparing sarcasm.
>>
>> When Chris left the project some ten years ago he left behind a huge
>> hole. He had newly married, had a very young son and was finishing his PhD
>>
>> He has left now a much much larger hole.
>>
>> Rest in Peace, Chris
>>
> --
> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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