[sword-devel] USFM -> OSIS -> Sword

[Jonathan Morgan]

Hi Michael,

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 5:14 PM, Kahunapule Michael Johnson <
kahunapule at mpj.cx> wrote:

>  On 03/07/2012 04:53 PM, Jonathan Morgan wrote:
>
>
>  ...  I'm suggesting copyright is the wrong tool to use to enforce such
> claims, since I can't see that it will actually target the one responsible
> for the wrong.  I agree quality control is a great thing to have.  I
> disagree that wide-ranging and not readily enforceable copyright claims
> will achieve it.
>
>
> You are free to disagree about copyright being useful to ensure
> non-corruption of the text, but the copyright owners are also free to
> disregard your objection and act contrary to your wishes, anyway. I'm not
> the copyright owner. I'm one of the world's greatest advocates of
> copyright-free Bibles and senior editor of the World English Bible. I'm
> also in the position of asking for copyright permission and dealing with
> copyright owners' concerns. The #1 reason they give me for copyrighting
> Bibles is that they want some way to protect the text from corruption.
> Arguments to the contrary are futile. You will be assimilated. OK, maybe
> not assimilated, but ignored or disagreed with. At least that is what kind
> of a response I usually get. I'm just trying to preserve the fragile
> permissions I have gotten.
>

Thanks, I was unclear.  I was not arguing against copyright in Bibles
generally (though I do not like it, it's a separate issue).  All I was
arguing was that the provisions as you described them to me seemed too
wide-ranging, and as a result were unenforceable.

I'm not arguing that you shouldn't do due diligence: given the copyright
terms it seems reasonable to do the best due diligence possible.  All I'm
suggesting is that the bar of "all known frontends showing the right thing"
feels too high to me.  I hope that's a bit clearer.


> Regardless of your feelings about copyrights and Bibles, we have a higher
> reason to not want to corrupt or mis-display Bible texts, anyway, so the
> copyright argument is secondary, anyway.
>

I agree.  However, where (I think) I would differ is in questioning whether
a frontend needs to handle perfectly every module.  It is most definitely a
desirable goal, but so long as there is a reasonable subset of modules that
do work perfectly and are used by people, the software is useful.
Sometimes due to earlier technical decisions it is impossible without
substantial work (e.g. RtoL, av11n), and that work will take time to do.
Such large projects will not necessarily get the highest priority.

Jon
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