[sword-devel] e-Sword collaboration & other copyright matters

[Chris Little]

> A few weeks ago (14-12-00) I emailed the newsgroep of the online bible
> (news.onlinebible.org) asking if there was going to be an open source
> version of the OLB.

Avoid their newsgroup.  OLB has given no support through their bulletin
board/newsgroup since they've existed.  The users finally got fed up with
OLB's official bulletin board and formed their own.  The useful (and active)
OLB-related forum is:
http://pub23.bravenet.com/forum/show.asp?usernum=1920683510 .  It's run by
TOLBSS, the free OLB module site, unaffiliated with Larry Pierce.

> A few days later I received a long email from the dutch distributor
> of the OLB stating he strongly disagreed the SWORD project because
>
> (quote) "...their website contains mostly illegal software for
> distributing
> copyrighted bible texts..."
> (quote") "...cannot agree with this anarchistic behaviour..."

Woohoo! That's a lot of FUD.  Peter F van der Schelde must be afraid we're
going to cut into his profit margin or something.  If they're so afraid of
our "anarchistic behaviour" I guess I'd better rethink helping them out on
any projects in the future.  I wouldn't want to taint their project. :)

Seriously, though, if anyone knows of any unencrypted, copyrighted modules
that are posted, please mention it so that we can encrypt them and contact
the owner for permission.  He may just have seen the encrypted texts and
assumed we were giving them out for free.  And I have no idea what he means
by "illegal software" when referring to the OLB converter.  It's not as if
it even required any reverse engineering for Troy to write it.  It just
reads a RTF file that OLB exports as one of its features.


--Chris