[sword-devel] Authoritative Module Sources

[Brian J. Dumont]

Troy,

I have to state, as a (fairly new) module developer, that I agree 100%
with Matthew.  Quite frankly, your response makes me feel like the
contributions of those putting together modules is not *really* valued
by the project.

CCEL is not really a good option, in my opinion.  Over the years they
have worked to further and further restrict access to marked up files. 
I am encoding works that are in the public domain and I want them to be
freely accessible to *everyone*.  CCEL seems to have different goals.  I
don't blame them, I don't know their funding sources, their
organization, or their reason to exist.  They have every right to claim
copyright on the markup of public domain texts (I think).  But I don't
want to be a part of that.  My goals are different.

I had thought that they were in line with the Sword's goals.  It seems not.

Brian


Troy A. Griffitts wrote:
> Dear Matthew,
>
> I understand that you wish CrossWire were the host of authoritative 
> content.  We do not currently have the infrastructure to do this, nor do 
> we currently wish to do this when organizations like CCEL exist.  As 
> stated in my previous email, Harry Plantinga, who runs CCEL, attends 
> most of our OSIS conferences.  His team has even written a (now defunct) 
> OSIS MSWord plugin.  At one time, he even attempted to allow his 
> documents to be obtained in OSIS format using XSLT transformations.  He 
> created ThML long before OSIS existed and my hope (though somewhat 
> waning) is that someday he will adopt OSIS as his pristine source 
> markup.  But even if not, I know his team strives to push their 
> documents toward very well conforming and unambiguous ThML.  This makes 
> conversion much easier for us.  There have been times our users have 
> produced new material here at CrossWire and we have almost always 
> submitted that material to CCEL for hosting, maintenance, and further 
> development.
>
> I am sorry that you disagree with this policy, but it is currently our 
> policy.  Please know that I have heard your disagreement.
>
> 	-Troy.
>
>
>
> Matthew Talbert wrote:
>   
>>> There are other organizations who are dedicated to being authoritative
>>> text sources.  One of these organizations is CCEL, with whom CrossWire
>>> has a very good relationship.  We want to encourage their ministry, as
>>> they have encouraged our ministry.  If there is not a good document
>>> source for a particular area of interest which you feel the need to
>>> contribute toward.  Please join CCEL and produce your work there.
>>>       
>> This thoroughly confuses me. As far as I can tell, CCEL works with
>> ThML. I understand from recent discussions that Crosswire will accept
>> ThML from CCEL but no one else. However, if Crosswire is promoting
>> OSIS why would you encourage us to go to CCEL?
>>
>> I do not think that Crosswire's goal of promoting OSIS (particularly
>> as represented by Chris in these threads) is compatible with the
>> policy of not maintaining sources.
>>
>> I also do not feel this policy accurately reflects the value of the
>> module library to the Sword Project. I was just told in a private
>> email that the module library was one of the most valuable parts of
>> the project, which attracted people who would otherwise go elsewhere.
>> In addition it was mentioned that the value of this library was why
>> sources were not made available, because other projects could too
>> easily use them as well.
>>
>> I do not see how these policies line up with the official goals of the
>> Crosswire project either. However, I do thank you for the
>> clarification on all of this, and your very clear rejection of
>> community input. It has made it quite clear to me that I have been in
>> the wrong place.
>>
>> Goodbye and God bless,
>>
>> Matthew
>>
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>
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