That's a debate that goes far beyond the scope of the current discussion, but to be honest I don't understand why USX even exists ^^'
USFM favours easy editing of the files with its simple text tags. It makes perfect sense for editing bibles, in particular in translation software. OSIS favours accurate semantic description of the document structure (with nested elements and such), making use of the full power of XSD. It makes perfect sense for published document representation, and for software that cares about searching and rendering. USX takes the worst of both worlds : it takes all the heaviness of XML, while using it to render flat sequences like USFM does. It's basically "USFM, but heavier". I see no gain compared to USFM, except potentially the fact that escaping of special characters is made easier (because handled natively by the XML parser). That's not a whole lot to justify a brand new format. My personal conclusion after this exchange would simply be "Great, if nobody else currently cares, we can take full ownership of OSIS, let's do it ! " :-D Le dim. 18 févr. 2024 à 22:20, Michael Johnson <kahunap...@ebible.org> a écrit : > Thank you, Michael, for the pointer to Jonathan Robie's paper on > Scriptural markup in the Bible translation community. I think it > diplomatically states why USX won out over OSIS as the primary and > best-supported XML standard for representing Scripture. > > I really don't expect USFM or USX to go away any time soon, nor do I > expect OSIS to gain significant traction where it is not in use already. I > think it is safe to say that Crosswire is the group that cares most about > OSIS. In many ways, the USX vs. OSIS competition is like the old VHS vs. > BetaMax video tape competition. (Remember way back when video tapes were > actually used?) BetaMax was technically superior in many ways, but VHS won > because of (1) greater support by content providers, (2) slightly lower > cost of implementation, and (3) incompatibility between the formats (i.e. > no machine could read both formats). > > I honestly think that fully supporting USX would be a better use of > limited resources than tweaking OSIS to overcome its current defects. > > For those that don't know, USX is an XML representation of USFM. > > USX is well documented and actively maintained at > https://ubsicap.github.io/usx/. OSIS is abandoned by almost everyone by > Crosswire. Backup copies of the Schema or on crosswire.org and > eBible.org, but there is currently no official pumpkin holder to maintain > it. > > USX is fully automatically convertable to and from USFM with no loss or > human intervention needed. This is not true of pure OSIS for technical and > philosophical reasons. This is probably the biggest reason that OSIS was > never supported natively in Paratext, and most likely never will be. > > USX is the native format of the Every Tribe Every Nation Digital Bible > Library, which is the highest-quality and best-supported repository of > Bible translations in the world. > > USX and/or USFM are supported by all of the best Bible translation > software, including open source options. OSIS has no Bible translation > software support. > > USX and/or USFM are supported by numerous Bible publishing options, both > digitally and for print. OSIS has no significant Bible publishing support > outside of Crosswire. > > USX has organizational support from the most influential Bible translation > agencies. > > Using USX and/or USFM makes versification mapping easier, because someone > else has already done the work. > > There are currently at least 2 reasonable ways to convert from USFM or USX > to OSIS with minimal losses in formatting. Neither one is perfect, but > maybe good enough. There is a lot of code assuming OSIS inputs to Sword > modules, and that could remain, along with GBF and TEI, but I can see > better quality coming from direct USX support. > > If OSIS is good enough as is, fine. But if it isn't, then I suggest that > it be phased out rather than modified. > > > On 2/18/24 09:42, Michael H wrote: > > Re: Lack of momentum for OSIS. > > OSIS as described on wikipedia is owned by a committee including United > Bible Societies, SIL International, and the Society of Biblical > Literature. > > However, this team got together and created the version that is available, > then almost completely ignored it, and went back to the SFM tagging system > and then produced USFM, when turned into several more closely related XML > languages, but has become USX. There was in the UBS/SIL Paratext > translation program the ability to produce OSIS output until version 8, but > since about 2016, there is no use or mention of OSIS in Paratext. > > A history and analysis of why this is published in Balisage 2021 > conference: > > > https://www.balisage.net/Proceedings/vol26/html/Robie01/BalisageVol26-Robie01.html > > Even in 2024, the tagging language USFM remains the "primary" tool to > encode biblical works at almost all the organizations that produced OSIS. > There is no momentum for that committee to ever meet again. But the spec > has holes. > > https://gitlab.com/cmahte/osis-users-manual-2.1 > > I started working on updating OSIS, and in the process received a reply > from someone at ABS or UBS that although the OSIS spec is copyrighted and > does not contain specific verbiage about reuse, I could and should consider > it licensed under creative commons BY-SA. (At the time, I wasn't seeking to > update OSIS, but freely copy from it in creating a successor or fork.) > > This means that OSIS is both abandoned and available for adoption by a > successor body. I've also since moved on from ever producing proposed > changes to it or a fork myself. IF I ever got far enough along to need a > formal spec, it would be extensions USFM or to OpenDocument or more > directly synonymous with that XML. If you're interested, I'll dig up the > contact information, and pass it along. But I do have a copy re-edited into > USFM (or more specifically a draft version of PSFM... which means the way > tables are built in my text are unusual.) If there is an effort to update. > I can transform my work into LibreOffice Writer format. > > I suggest it is time to consider an OSIS 3, or at least an OSIS 2.2 spec > that is owned by a successor organization instead of organizations that > effectively abandoned it. That's the missing link which would provide a > mechanism to actually make changes to the standard. People (including me) > keep doing this search and landing at Crosswire Bible society as the best > option for a new owner. But maybe who OWNS can be one of the topics > considered by a committee. > > On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 9:47 AM Arnaud Vié <unas.zole+a...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Hi everyone, >> >> Having dived into the whole crosswire ecosystem recently, I'm at the same >> time impressed at the quality of the tools provided (in particular the OSIS >> standard and the JSword lib, as I've been working in Java), and worried by >> what I perceive as a lack of dynamism around it's development and >> difficulty to contribute. >> >> By "lack of dynamism" I of course don't mean to criticise the time anyone >> spends (as we contribute to a free ecosystem, we all have lives keeping us >> busy elsewhere), but rather to highlight how rough it is for external >> enthusiastic people to join. >> For example, I'd like to contribute evolutions to the OSIS standard >> around versification systems, but I have no idea where to make such >> proposals, as there is only a mailing list dead since 2015 >> <http://crosswire.org/pipermail/osis-core/>, a few wiki pages >> <https://wiki.crosswire.org/Category:OSIS> and a few downloadable >> documents <https://crosswire.org/osis/> which are supposedly the latest >> version. >> >> I think a lot of that could be improved by making better use of the >> crosswire github project <https://github.com/crosswire>, which is >> nowadays the first contact most young developers will have with these >> crosswire projects. >> >> I'd like to propose a few changes, get your opinions, and volunteer to >> execute them if everyone agrees. >> >> - *Revive the jsword github repository*. >> That includes >> - Backporting the relevant changes from the andbible fork >> <https://github.com/AndBible/jsword/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed> >> (excluding android-specific stuff - which I already mostly removed in >> my >> last PR there). >> - Setting up a release process to publish the jar on a maven >> repository. >> - Setting up a clear branching model and writing clear >> contribution guidelines. >> - Having a team of several people familiar with Java development >> to review PRs or answer questions in the issue tracker. I obviously >> volunteer, but more people is always the best. >> >> - *Create a new Git repository for the OSIS specification*. >> Must contain : >> - In Git, the OSIS XSD schema, and the functional specification >> (basically, the contents of the current manual) in markdown or asciidoc >> format. >> So that contributions to the standard may be opened as pull >> requests, reviewed, potentially stored as separate branches, etc. >> - A wiki tab where all relevant OSIS-related resources from the >> crosswire wiki should be copied. >> >> - Ideally, I'd also suggest *moving the C++ sword code to github*. >> Having it only on an old SVN repo >> <https://crosswire.org/svn/sword/trunk/>, not browsable or searchable >> online, really harms its visibility. I used a little bit of SVN while in >> engineering school 12 years ago, but I doubt that most young devs nowadays >> even know about it. >> >> But for this last C++ part, I suspect it has bigger impact on current >> developers, since Troy is still actively developing it and using the Jira >> bugtracker for this part - so there is no urgent need to change. >> I'm really more worried about the jsword repo (it breaks my heart to see >> it dead since 2019) and having a visible and versioned location for the >> OSIS standard. >> >> Please let me know your thoughts ! >> And whoever is currently admin of the github project, would you be >> willing to grant me some permissions on the jsword repo and a new >> "osis-spec" repo to start setting up all of this ? >> >> Regards, >> >> Arnaud Vié >> _______________________________________________ >> sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org >> http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel >> Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page >> > > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list: > sword-devel@crosswire.orghttp://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel > Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page > > -- > > Aloha, > *Michael Johnson* > * 26 HIWALANI LOOP • MAKAWAO HI 96768-8747* • USA > mljohnson.org • eBible.org • WorldEnglish.Bible • PNG.Bible > Signal/Telegram/WhatsApp/Telephone: +1 808-333-6921 > Skype: kahunapule • Telegram/Twitter: @kahunapule • Facebook: > fb.me/kahunapule <https://www.facebook.com/kahunapule> > _______________________________________________ > sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org > http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel > Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page >
_______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel@crosswire.org http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page
