[sword-devel] The OSIS Vision vs STEP

[Chris Little]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Troy A. Griffitts wrote:

> 	I had a conference call yesterday with the American Bible Society and 
> they have assured me that they plan to sell and distribute OSIS 
> documents exactly as I have stated in my previous email.

Past statements (and presentations at the Rome conference) have conveyed
that ABS plans to give/sell their their library of essentially
commercially worthless (but certainly quite valuable as sources of
information) texts.  Nothing has ever impressed upon me the notion that 
they intend to release texts still in print that still make money.  That 
would be great if they did.

> They are working 
> on solutions for digital rights management, and future OSIS 
> specifications will likely included such.

In how may years? :)  It was a felt need by many folks from commercial 
interests.  However, those people didn't have any interest in providing 
time/resources/jack-squat to the development of the standard through the 
WGs, so that whole side pretty much appeared to have been dropped.  And I 
know a number of folks see DRM as unnecessary for what they envision OSIS 
as being.

> 	If you don't think this vision for OSIS is valid, tell it to the 150+ 
> publishers, software vendors, and Bible Societies already signed up for 
> OSIS training next month in Canada.

I'll believe it when I see someone actually do it.  Maybe ABS can be a
leader and other orgs will eventually follow suit.  Wouldn't that be
wonderful.  Some group would probably pop up to sell packaged
licenses/texts as well, then at least some of our bigger problems would be
solved, sorta.

--Chris