On 03/07/2012 02:46 PM, Kahunapule Michael Johnson wrote:
On 03/06/2012 04:12 PM, Jonathan Morgan wrote:
On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Kahunapule Michael Johnson
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 03/06/2012 12:47 AM, Jonathan Morgan wrote:
1. You accurately preserve all of the original text and
punctuation (including quotation punctuation) exactly as
it was in the original USFM. This involves the complete
process from module creation to display in all front
ends. This is an absolute requirement with respect to
the canonical text. If this condition isn't met, then I
don't have permission to convert these Scriptures to
Sword format, nor do you have such permission.
I'm afraid I do not understand how either you or CrossWire can
ensure that *all* front ends display all text correctly. I have
no idea from your descriptions whether BPBible or any other
frontends would meet the requirements currently. However, even
if they did it is conceivable that a new front end is created
which does not meet the requirements. Does this mean that
CrossWire immediately loses permission to distribute the text
for use in any of the front ends? (including all the front ends
that are compliant, of course).
That is a very good question-- one that I really don't want to
have to raise with the copyright owners!
At a minimum, noncompliant front ends may not use the texts if
they cannot do so without corrupting them.
A couple of things:
1. Non-compliant frontends do not use the text: users do.
2. Non-compliant frontends do not distribute modules: CrossWire (or
some other organisation) does.
Blame-shifting is not productive. Quality control at all stages in the
complete system from Bible translator to user is productive.
I'm not talking about getting all of the formatting correct. I'm
just talking about exactly preserving all text and punctuation of
the canonical text. If a front end cannot do that, it should be
withdrawn from public distribution, as it is clearly a threat to
our ability to distribute Scriptures. Actually, there is a
greater threat that copyrights: the fear of God. I wouldn't want
to be caught dead or alive corrupting the Holy Bible. I would
think that you wouldn't, either. It is a fearsome thing to fall
into the hands of God when He is angry.
All of this assumes knowledge of errors. Unless you manually test
every verse of every Bible in every frontend, some could display a
result different from what you expected. I know that at different
times I have seen some unusual bugs.
A few (real world) cases:
1. A bug in BPBible meant that when Strong's Numbers were displayed,
some verses in the Chinese would not display.
2. A bug in encoding meant opening a Bible to a particular chapter
would raise an error message.
3. Incorrect font usage meant that the text displayed completely wrongly.
When these bugs are encountered and reported, we will fix them, but I
cannot write (consistently) bug-free code and I don't think I've ever
met a developer who can. Certainly a fairly high percentage of the
module rendering errors that are reported to me in BPBible are caused
by modules I had never used (often in languages I did not know), and
where for whatever reason my assumptions were wrong.
I understand the limitations of imperfect human programmers. What I
expect is that:
* Each part of the whole Bible study software system from
translation to module creation to back end development to front
end display is carefully designed to correctly handle Bible texts
without corruption.
* Reasonable care is taken by everyone involved to ensure that the
implementations are correct.
* Reasonable testing is done.
* High priority is given to correcting any problems that result in
corruption of the text.
This is not unreasonable, is it?
Responding as a module creator...
I understand and share your desire to have Bible translations rendered
faithfully (not corrupted - we're not talking about SWORD corrupting
your data but rather failing to render it faithfully). And I think your
expectations above are reasonable. The developers work hard to make sure
the software works correctly. I think the conversation about headings in
the past few days has shown this. However, at the end of the day, the
module creator is responsible to ensure that these expectations are met.
You are responsible to make sure that your markup produces the desired
result and that adequate testing is done. I suggest testing as broadly
as you can, at a minimum testing in BibleTime, Xiphos, BibleDesktop, and
BibleCS. I think that should cover the main rendering methods.
If something essential is not yet supported, you can lobby for it and
refrain from submitting a module until your desired markup is supported.
After you submit a module, if you notice a bug, you can lobby to have it
fixed or offer a fix yourself. If the bug is serious enough, you can ask
for the module to be taken off the server until there is a fix.
But consider this—where else can you publish your translations? I had a
conversation with a leading for-profit Bible software company executive
about getting Vietnamese Bibles into their software. Now, Vietnamese is
among the top 20 most-spoken languages in the world (i.e., a real
market), but they were not very interested, even if I volunteered to
help. Crosswire does an amazing service to minority languages by making
them available through a free distribution network.
Daniel
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