[sword-devel] Here's Our Chance: Copyright Negotations

[David's Mailing List and Spam Reciever]

On Tuesday 17 September 2002 04:34 pm, Dan Bertles wrote:
> I strongly recommend that we not get into the ordeal of handling money nor
> distributing texts for sale.  This is not a moral issue (at least I don't
> want to go there again), but a shear matter of focus.  The Sword Project
> should stick with software development.  We can offer to create a module
> that they can distribute or offer an encrypted module that others can pay
> them directly to get the encryption code.  Other than that, I feel we are
> asking for trouble in getting into the rest.

How about we get some people who will be official parts of the sword project 
that do nothing but handle orders and things? I for one have been wanting to 
help but I don't know C/C++ yet. I'm not sure what qualifications are needed, 
but I could process orders or whatever in my spare time as a college student, 
or even set up a time once a week that I process orders or something. I agree 
that having our developers like Troy, Jocham, or whoever handle orders would 
be a mistake. But I also think it would also be a mistake to not handle 
orders if we have people that are wanting to help but aren't programmers. 
There are plenty of non-programmers who would love to help but need a way.

See, a lot of the big name publishers and copyright holders aren't going to 
bother with us if *they* have to mess with the orders. They have bigger fish 
to fry just like we do. Publishers have a lot more to do than just making 
bibles and things like that. They have to worry about printing, handeling 
their own sales and orders, translating new versions, editing, marketing, and 
some even publish comentaries and other refrence works. This is not an easy 
task and requires much more focus, to use your word, than developing 
software. And not meaning any offense to anyone here, but I really don't see 
a reason why as a volunteer orginization we should get more consideration for 
our workload and focus than a for-profit corporation or company. After all, 
we don't have to worry about workforce sizes, cost analysis, overhead, 
profits, the bottom line, and other such things. If we need new positions we 
just find more volunteers.

And personally I feel that if God has me serve Him by helping in Crosswire, my 
time would be best spent processing orders rather than learning enough C/C++ 
to help develop. Plus, it would help me get a NKJV in BibleTime so I wouldn't 
have to be constantly refering to my print version when writing studies and 
things.

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