[sword-devel] Re: An apology ......

[Dr. Eric Hermanson]

Dear Rev Drake

Thank you for your e-mail. All too often we receive abusive emails from
well-meaning people who forget that it pays for Christians to be courteous,
whether dealing with fellow-Christians or unbelievers.

I am pasting a copy of an email I have just sent to Troy Griffitts, granting
the Sword Project permission to offer the 1933/53 Afrikaans translation as a
free download for use with the software.

"Dear Mr Griffiths

Thank you for your email. It seems that we have had correspondence from
various people in the past regarding the Sword Project, but as the name is
so similar to ESword, it seems as if we have had our wires crossed,
compounded also by your domain name Crosswire.

I see that you already have both the 1933/53 and 1983 translations on your
website as locked modules.

The copyright text of the 1933/53 translation of the Bible in Afrikaans is
usually subject to the payment of copyright fees, particularly when included
on a CD which is offered for sale. We have however, agreed that the text may
be offered for free download to use with Sword software, on the condition
that the following words appear in an appropriate position on the website:
"This copyright Bible has kindly been made available by the Bible Society of
South Africa. To contribute towards the distribution of affordable Bibles in
South Africa Click: http://www.biblesociety.co.za/contributions.htm."

This will then make it possible for you to offer an electronic Bible in
Afrikaans to those who require it, and at the same time give them the
opportunity to help us in our mission to make affordable Bibles available to
all in South Africa. Although Johan Kok states in his email to us that God
gave His Word free, He unfortunately did not give it free in the languages
of South Africa. Bible translation, which is still going on in at least one
South African language, Southern Ndebele,  which still does not have a
complete Bible, is a costly excercise. We therefore depend on God and the
contributions of His people in South Africa to print and distribute over a
million affordable Bibles in different languages and formats, such as
Braille, annually.

With regard to the 1983 Afrikaans translation, we normally enter into a
contract with anyone who wishes to distribute it. This would normally
include a once off payment for a copyright licence and then a small fee for
each copy downloaded or distributed. The amounts are determined by whether
the text is going to be sold for commercial gain, or used with freeware.
Please let us know if you would like to enter into such a contract whereby
you will be licenced to unlock the module for those who pay the fee which
you then forward to us, usually quarterly.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely
Dr E A Hermanson"

----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Drake" <b.drake@ntlworld.com>
To: <hermanson@biblesociety.co.za>; <sword-devel@crosswire.org>;
<sword-support@crosswire.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 12:55 PM
Subject: An apology ......


> Dear Dr. Hermanson ......
>
> May I apologise on behalf of the Sword Project for a message sent you by
> Johan Kok.  His attitude does not reflect the policy of the Sword Project
> and should be disregarded.  Please accept my personal apology for any
> offense caused.  I have written to him as follows:
>
> On 6 May 2003 at 9:00, Johan Kok wrote:
> > GOD gave his word for free. No man or organisation has the right to keep
it
> > from His people with copyright laws, thus you are defeating the object
of
> > your society by blocking the free distribution of His word.
>
> I'm sorry but this kind of comment - whatever we may think privately - is
> NOT helpful to the Sword programme.  It has the opposite effect to opening
> doors, and means that when we later make approaches to copyright holders
> who have been bombarded with this kind of thing, we are not listened to at
> all.  Please, please keep this kind of thinking to yourselves or if you
> must, to the list!
>
> God bless,
> Barry
>
> -- From Barry Drake (The Revd) minister of the Netherfield United Reformed
> church, Nottingham see http://www.jesusinnetherfield.org.uk for our church
> homepages).
>
> Replies - b.drake@ntlworld.com
>
>
>
>