[sword-devel] upcoming modules and collaboration with OLB people

[Chris Little]

Thought I would drop a line, mentioning what some of the modules I have
lined up to create are.

Later today, I'm hoping to complete a couple ThML based commentaries for
testing (probably Scoffield in English and German).  I'll zip them and put
them on the SWORD Alpha site because ThML support is only included in the
1.5 development branch via CVS.

Then, I'm going to work on getting us a pointed BHS from the Oxford text
archive.  I still need to ask them permission for use, but I want to see how
it looks in SWORD using the ISO Hebrew encoding to decide if it is even
worth it to include.

I've asked the copyright owner of the NET Bible to use their translation,
but am not entirely optimistic.  I've also asked Kevin Knight, who runs
newadvent.org, whether we can use the Catholic Encyclopedia.  While I
haven't received a response yet, I am optimistic about this one.  The CE
would be a really nice addition to SWORD because it has . . . pictures. :)
With ThML, we can handle pictures in the library, though the frontends may
be another matter.  I'm also going to work on a map module and some
additional picture modules based on images from the web.

I also asked The Learn Foundation for permission to use the ISV in SWORD and
did receive permission with the following license:


    Permission is hereby granted to utilize the ISV under the following
    terms and conditions:

    1. No charge may be made to end users for the ISV.

    2. You must use the current release (v1.10, build #5 released 15
December
    1999) as your release text. You agree to update your release text with
the
    latest version and build of the ISV periodically at your discretion, but
no
    less often than annually. Please be advised that other vendors will
probably
    update quarterly.

    3. You agree not to distribute the ISV in any locked form. If you
distribute
    demo copies of your software, you agree that the ISV will be freely
accessible
    in the demo version.

    4. NO license to publish printed copies of the ISV are granted hereby.

    5. You agree to incorporate the ISV triglyph device as an identifying
    logo for the ISV, the front matter of the ISV, and all footnotes of the
    ISV in your electronic edition. Contact us if you cannot extract the
logo from
    the downloaded files.

    6. You agree to include the version and build number in your indicia
    that describe the inclusion of the ISV in your electronic edition as
    follows:
        Holy Bible: International Standard Version, v1.10, build #5
        Copyright (c) 2000 by The Learn Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.


Converting it will be a different matter since it's in a horrendously
complicated format, but at least we have permission on a genuine copyrighted
modern translation.  I'm not sure, though, how they will like our "charging"
for CDs so I'll email them with details and see.

Also, I've been venturing over into enemy territory: the Online Bible User
Discussion forum.  I've been helping out to convert ISBE to OLB format since
it seemed a whole lot nicer to spend an hour writing a script to tag for OLB
than to let their users manually tag verses in 9000 articles.  In the
process, I've had a number of discussion with Jonathan Dixon, who runs The
Online Bible Software Site (TOLBSS -- http://www.ccel.org/olb/ - it's not
affiliated with Larry Pierce or his company at all, but is supported by the
good folks at CCEL like Harry Plantinga) and we've decided to collaborate a
bit and help each other out with releasing new material for both packages.
Quite a number of OLB users, Jonathan included, have expressed great
interest in SWORD, largely because of its open-source nature.  Their major
hangups seem to be interface and lack of support for a general book type.  I
still can't understand the interface problem, so I asked Jonathan to give me
some suggestions, which he said he would later today.

Welp, that's all I have to report for now.  I hope everyone is having happy
holidays.

--Chris