[sword-devel] ANNOUNCEMENT: WYCLIFFE MODULES (DM Smith)

[Jeremy Brown]

That is really great. I don't post here much (ever?) but I am appreciative
of the work Crosswire does.

I have a question, in the face of the coming onslaught of Bible
translations.  It regards the versification schemes.  I know people always
ask about that, and it is on the to-do list.  But I wonder if now would be
a great time to do something about the problem.  Right now (if I'm wrong,
forgive me), Sword seems to take non-KJV versification schemes and squish
them into KJV chapter/verse format.  I have tried to work up an alternate
solution and basically I know that there is no perfect answer - every
solution has its trade offs.  However, since has an enormous number of
translations, and probably many of those don't fit the KJV versification
model (they may follow the model of the national language where they were
translated, or merge multiple verses together e.g. verse 1-7), it seems
like if you can plan a strategy and deal with the issue now, you won't
have to code all those translations once, and then recode them again when
you do make the change.

I currently have about 30-40 Bibles/testaments that are mapped/partially
mapped to the verse system in the NRSVA.  The original versification is
preserved in the database, but also the matching verse number in the
NRSVA.  There are some things I would have done differently, that I now
know about.  If you are interested in hearing more from me about this, I'd
be happy to share.  You may already have some ideas in the works, I don't
know.

Keep up the good work!

Jeremy

sword-devel at crosswire.org on Saturday, March 10, 2007 at 11:00 AM -0800
wrote:
>With great joy, I would like to officially announce that CrossWire and 
>Wycliffe have entered into an agreement which allows us to distribute, 
>royalty free, Wycliffe Bible translations, anywhere in the world, for an 
>initial 5 year trial period.
>
>This is huge answer to prayer.
>
>A number of years ago, when we first started working with Wycliffe, 
>we had talks about publishing their Scripture translations.  They 
>proceeded to tell us of the internal struggles between those who wished 
>to release their work for free, and others who held that the 
>organization needed to continue to charge royalties for their work to 
>allow them to continue work into the future.
>
>About a year ago Wycliffe started a project to use our software to 
>publish their Bibles online, themselves.
>
>This contract allows CrossWire to distribute all of their Bibles freely 
>in all of our software!
>
>The papers came officially signed in the mail today.  We are hoping to 
>have data files start coming in over the next couple weeks.  We could 
>really use help in many new areas as we start to bring these great 
>resources online.