[sword-devel] Lurker Comes Forward

[Keith Robertson]

Greetings,

I must admit that I have been lurking on this list for some time now.
However, I know feel I have the time available to contribute to this
project.  I am familiar with what you do and aim to do and am pleased
with both.  I wish to offer my services in any way the project leader(s)
feel is helpful provided it falls within my areas of knowledge and/or
interest.  These areas are:

Knowledge Areas
-strong coding skills (algorithm analysis and design)
-strong background in many aspects of Linux from kernel devel to gui
design (certainly prefer lower level things though)
-cryptography (esp ECC)
-I know nothing about Windows and don't care to know anything windows
_specific_.  I am however interested and have experience in writing
portable code for any platform which chooses to adhere to some
resemblance of open standards.
-familiarity with Qt

Potential Interest Areas (ie I don't know much about these items
currently)
-XML

If I can be of help in any way please let me know.


Here are some of my opinions about life, the universe, and everything so
they are out in open now.

1) I firmly believe in free exchange of information where it does not
cost money to do so.  You can charge people money if they are willing to
pay for it but I must insist that the information be freely available in
electronic form.  That is why I see this project as so important.  I
also believe that projects open to public scrutiny or both more secure
and accountable.  I would also like information on how to participate
and help out a open content version of the Bible.

2) I cannot stand American encryption export policies nor their attempts
to regulate mediums that are inherently international and largely used
by non Americans.

3) On a related note to the flurry of postings in recent days filling
all your mail boxes I believe the quickest way to alleviate the concerns
of so called "closed source" Bible translations is to release open
content versions of comparable or higher quality.  If Christians can
collectively produce a translation and tools of this quality they will
wipe out the market for those who wish to try and sell for profit
(and/or control usage of) God's Word.  It is difficult to compete with
the total utility of a product that is freely available.  That is also
my answer for those who wish to use closed content sources.  I would
support passively boycotting their use until they distribute the
products under a respectable license.  To all who inquire about the
availability of said products, point them to a person to write a letter
to and then show them the sanely licensed versions.

General Facts:

Name: Keith James Robertson
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Student with several years of full time work experience in
areas listed below
I'm currently a 4th year University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)
student in Electrical Engineering.  Some of the many things I have on
the go are:

Designing and building a hardware accelerator for Elliptic Curve
Cryptography (ECC).
Design of biometric, smart card reader, and associated software for
American Biometric Company (who, curiously, are not American :) )
General Linux tomfoolery including infrared devices and KDE stuff.

May God bless you and your families,

Keith James Robertson
'kjrobert@uwaterloo.ca'
--------------------
Save the whales, Feed the hungry, Free the mallocs