[sword-devel] summary

[Matthew Talbert]

> project and I am willing to bend over to support that effort. I used
> to be (and sometimes, unconsciously, still am) very abrasive and my
> sister, in her own loving way, encouraged me that "it is easier to
> catch flies with honey than vinegar."

While I haven't find you abrasive at all, I don't doubt your
testimony, and am thankful for the Lord's work in your life.

> I have advocated a repository for the sources that we use to create
> modules along with all the scripts used to do so. My reasoning comes
> from having majored in Biology, where all published experiments are
> judged on their repeatability by the scientific community. Additional
> motivation comes from the loss of primary sources, e.g. Bible
> Foundation.

I believe this is what people are asking for. It would help me tremendously.

> When we are a primary/authoritative source for a text, CrossWire will
> maintain it under SVN. This is the case with the KJV.

But is it available to others via SVN? I know it can be downloaded as
it is now, but I think it could be insightful to check the svn log for
such a module.

> With regard to fixing modules, I think there are two kinds of errors:
> 1) Upstream errors - the text we obtained had errors. In this case, we
> want to provide fixes to that source.
> 2) Module making errors - the text was fine, but we created a module
> with problems. These we can fix by dumping with mod2imp, making the
> change and re-creating the module.
> Without the source, none of us knows which it is and it is up to the
> original creator of the module or someone who can re-obtain the
> original to see where the problem lies. I guess this is another reason
> for us to host the input source.

Yes, I think many would agree. I have never meant to suggest anything
that would circumvent copyright or legal issues (although there have
been many allegations of that). Surely for many original sources,
Crosswire would be able to distribute the original text along with the
module and the scripts to convert.

> As to modules hosted on the CrossWire server, I feel that there is a
> strong need for a gatekeeper or two (not much more). The primary
> considerations, in my opinion are:
> 1) legality - is the work public domain or have we obtained permission
> for the module
> 2) from a primary/authoritative source
> 3) broad application support - does it work in the majority of front-
> ends and all the core ones (i.e. BibleCS, JSword, GnomeSword,
> BibleTime and MacSword) that are compiled against the latest SVN. I'm
> very willing for a module to be released to "production" if it doesn't
> work in JSword and even one other front-end [even BibleCS]).
> 4) Highest quality of rendering in the core front-ends. WRT JSword,
> this means the highest quality of markup. (I'll leave that
> sufficiently vague on purpose.)

I don't believe anyone is suggesting otherwise. I am certainly not,
and I have absolutely no problem with Chris being the one in charge of
this.

> WRT to JSword, our process for making changes is fairly straightforward:
> 1) Our work is driven by "bugs" entered in JIRA. Our first response is
> to fix bugs, then to make all module types supported and finally to
> add new features.
> 2) I may make changes that are not discussed on jsword-devel, but I
> try to ensure that they are backed by a JIRA entry.
> 3) All other changes are discussed first on jsword-devel, a JIRA entry
> is created and then patches are submitted. I review the code changes
> and probably will make further changes to keep it in line with the
> undocumented coding style of JSword. Likewise, Peter is our gatekeeper
> for translations.
> For the most part, I'll accept any changes that are offered.
>
> I guess what I'm trying to say, as far as I know, I am transparent in
> all that I do here.

Although I don't follow JSword development, I appreciate this attitude
tremendously. It is my personal feeling that open source leaders and
Christian ones in particular have a responsibility to do this. In my
Christian experience, I have been hurt and seen others hurt often by
leadership who were completely opaque and retained tight control. It
is sad to see the same attitude here.

> In Christ's Service,
>        DM

Thank you for your response DM. I appreciate your tone tremendously.