[sword-devel] NASB

Sat Dec 23 15:12:37 MST 2017

Hi, I know that this post is old, but I believe that I need to clarify something(s).

     At the very beginning of my earlier email (below with Greg's replies), when I was writing about Kahunapule's posts, I just meant his posts about the NASB in specific being ignored. I was not meaning to refer to all his posts in general which seems to be how my wording was taken. Also, I believe that some time later an email was sent out (by the admin of the mailing list I think?) letting everyone know that the mailing list server had some issues during this period of time. So, perhaps this may be related as well to the confusion. At any rate though, I am sorry and do apologize to Greg Hellings and, if needed, to Kahunapule Michael Johnson for any offenses. None was meant. Greg's reply to what I had written regarding Kahunapule's posts came across to me as a strong rebuttal and defense, but also a misunderstanding. I think that I originally did not think that the misunderstanding was worth replying to, but over time it has come to weigh on me. Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive in this, but I do believe in honesty with others and trying to be "at peace with others" as much as one can. So, it seemed good that I should write this.

Sincerely,

TS

On Feb 24, 2017, at 01:47 PM, Greg Hellings <greg.hellings at gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 3:22 PM, TS <outofthecube at icloud.com> wrote:

>From what I can tell, a member named Kahunapule Michael Johnson seems to be able to already create a NASB Sword module.

This is according to his post here and from last year as well.
http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/sword-devel/2017-January/044041.html

I don’t quite understand why his posts keep getting ignored.

Kahunapule's posts are not ignored. Many of his are informative, rather than asking for response or help. But he is not ignored. For instance, he wasn't really looking for help in setting up his automated repository of modules - he was keeping the community apprised of his progress on it. And people have given him responses and feedback when appropriate.

He seems to have been in contact with the Lockman Foundation, but for some reason thinks or thought that the NASB Sword module would be for free.

From what I understand from the forum discussions, in order for the NASB Sword module to be released, it would have to be a commercial module. Part of this means that it would obtainable through paying for it. So, the Lockman Foundation or Crosswire or some other entity would then host it on their website which allow for it to be downloaded only after paying for it. I’m guessing that a password would be provided to unlock the module.

It would not be sold by Crosswire. Crosswire is a non-income entity and does not sell any materials.

Can anyone tell me why Johnson's work is not being used? Generally speaking, could not Michael send it to Greg, Greg review it, and then if it passes, it be acceptable for release?

The goal was for us to be able to hand to Lockman, not a completed module, but a piece of software that they could feed their existing module through any time it changed and they could produce an updated version of the module themselves directly for distribution. So Kahunapule's work would not satisfy that requirement, unless he was starting from Lockman's internal text.

In addition to this, Greg himself already seems to have the work done in order to create the module. It seems that the real question is, does it work with all the major SWORD/JSword frontends? DM Smith confirmed last year that it worked with JSword and released a beta of BibleDesktop which supported it as well. The only two problems left (it possibly seems at least) based on DM Smith’s email are:

1) Does the Sword engine support having the lex as a single module (which is apparently a requirement from the Lockman foundation)? This would mean, for example, that Strong’s would have “G” (Greek) and “H” (Hebrew”) both as “keys”. (I’m guessing having more than one key is the problem or the order of the keys is? Would having them in the same module be a problem? Would having two different keys be a problem or would the order of “G” and then “H” be a problem?)

I don't know if the engine supports this. It's a worthy question.

2) Does the text display the same on BibleDesktop, SwordWeb and The SWORD Project for Windows? Apparently there’s a word which is accented differently?

There is a third item, and that is one of the bigger problems - there is more than just the NASB in the module set originally provided by Lockman. Troy requires that all of the modules build equally well off of the same codebase in an automated fashion. I ran into an issue with one of the modules that introduces a character set not present in the NASB. One of the characters in the set is represented the same way as a portion of the NASB markup but with very different semantics. I had, at the time, no immediately relevant solution to untangle the proper processing of the two semantics. The particular markup has exactly one meaning in the NASB and handling it can be automated, but in the other module it sometimes had a different meaning. And I was not able to guarantee that the character always was being handled properly in the second module.

I have not had a chance to revisit the issue since that date. My personal life has been haywire for the past 9-12 months with two trans-continental moves and some very trying family problems. Revisiting the module may be possible in the near future, but locating the latest work on it is non-trivial. There was never even a guarantee that I was tackling the latest version of the module source. I've never received a clear answer on whether I was, as the need for keeping the Copyrighted module protected meant it was not placed in any public repository and Crosswire does not have (to my knowledge) a private hosting of a git repo or such to keep better track of these things (understandable since this is a unique case in Crosswire's existence).

The writing on the mailing list regarding the NASB is quite convoluted. I think it’s important though for Matt Zabojnik to know that it’s possible that he doesn’t need to make a new module. He may instead be able to just coordinate and or facilitate things between Greg and Kahunapule Michael Johnson as I wrote above. They both have working modules from what I can tell.

I'm not certain what Kahunapule's source material was, but I know my NASB was working very well. It was the other modules in the set which were not yet working well. There was at least one other Bible that had the problems I described above, and while I had much of the code to work on the transformation of the lexica, there was still debate over how properly that should be rendered into Sword. That would need to be addressed before the work could be completed.

--Greg

I also do apologize if I’m offending or mis-representing anyone. I’m trying to distill the current situation of the NASB Sword module into its essentials.

-TS

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