[sword-devel] NASB

Fri Feb 24 14:46:08 MST 2017

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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