[sword-devel] Open Content Creation

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Don A. Elbourne Jr. <delbourne@home.com> wrote:

> I'd be interested to hear what others think. Instead of trying to wrestle
> copyrights out of the clinched fists of those "rotten, no-good, selfish,
> greedy, heartless, un-Christ-like, publishers" why not just create content
> ourselves? What would be the barriers to such a project? what should the
> goals be? What type of content should be created?

I'll answer the last question first (a good Biblical principle)
translation. But that's a huge task. Look at Eugene Petersen or J B
Phillips. 10 years for the New Testament, which is the average for such
work. There were over 100 people involved i the NIV tansaltion committees.
Whilst my primary interest is in translation I've no desire what so ever
to add to the plethora of English translations by creating another one.
Especially as there is little to distinguish some of current FE based
translations on the market.

Maybe over time (three years, if I stuck to it) my notes from following
the IVP "Search the Scripture" study plan. But I'm no Matthew Henry.

> Any feedback is welcome.

I think it infeasible to create new content for Sword just to get around
copyright issues. More realistically picking up some of the PD works at
CCEL would add commentary modules.

Tools to help create personal modules from copyright material already in a
user's possession would be better. For example a tool to convert the NET
HTML pages into a sword module I could use would be great. Then others who
have also got the same HTML files could create the identical module for
themselves. For a de-PDF utility to create a GW module I can use instead
of their downloadable PDF files.

Regards, Trevor

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