[sword-devel] Searching and copyrights.

[Daniel Glassey]

just another couple of things to throw in:

it generally says in any license that you get with software like this that the license does not 
allow you to reverse engineer it.

This stuff means afaict that you cannot legally write an importer using information gained 
from looking at the data of these programs.

Things like STEP and OSIS are a different matter since they have been/will be published, 
but a legal importer will not be written for any of these other programs - otoh if you can 
export text from these programs you can create your own personal, not for redistribution, 
module from it (assuming that is covered by fair use - ianal).

To summarise, it is extremely unlikely that sword will support reading or converting the 
formats of other programs - unless they give their permission.

Regards,
d

On 16 Jul 2002 at 8:21, Daniel Adams - infoChi sent forth the message:

> I will respond with the curiosity question of if sword is going to be made
> to read other formats which is a wish list item in my opinion, what about
> Bible Explorer files.
> 
> In Him,
> Daniel Adams - infoChi@infomagic.net
> http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~dpa3
> 
>   1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)-  Each one should use whatever gift he has received to
> serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-sword-devel@crosswire.org
> [mailto:owner-sword-devel@crosswire.org]On Behalf Of Jeremy Bettis
> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 7:53 AM
> To: sword-devel@crosswire.org
> Subject: RE: [sword-devel] Searching and copyrights.
> 
> 
> > Could we eventually get copyright holders (NIV, NASB, etc.) to market
> > Sword
> > for us and cover all the issues relating to module distribution and
> > royalty
> > payment, etc.?  If Sword were so polished, we could go to these companies
> > (I won't make moral statements as to the right to hold these licenses),
> >  and we could get them their own modules, with all the bells and whistles.
> >  They could sell the modules at any price that they thought was fair, but
> > they would be so inclined to distribute Sword with it because there would
> > be nothing better.
> 
> 
> Could sword be augmented to read the file formats of some of the existing
> Bible software out there?  Here is what I mean:
> * I see the major strength of Sword to be the vast number of translations,
> commentaries and lexicons that can be used at once and cross referenced.
> * I don't really see "free" as the most important issue here
> * Zondervan made available (for a while at least) a free download of a NIV
> bible in their Zondervan Reference Software package.
> * If sword could read ZRS files, then I could use a legal NIV along with the
> many public translations that are on the sword web site.
> Now I understand that ZRS is a complex file format, and probably secret. (I
> havn't been able to figure it out with just a quick look).  But you can
> purchase bible texts in the STEP format (is that the right abbr?), which is
> well documented.
>