<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/1/28 Peter von Kaehne <span dir="ltr"><refdoc@gmx.net></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> I certainly don't mind a good conversation about how we can best work<br>
> together to help people get the Bible on their computers, but I've<br>
> honestly been a little shocked and saddened by this "cease and desist"<br>
> attitude. I think it's pretty counterproductive and just raises<br>
> tensions that don't need to be there. We all, I believe, have the same<br>
> goal of spreading the Good News to our neighbors and enabling<br>
> Christians to further their faith. This isn't a "us and them" thing,<br>
> this is a group of people with common goals trying to figure out the<br>
> best way to help others.<br>
<br>
</div>I am so sorry, Jordan.<br>
<br>
The problem here right now is that this is a longer ongoing conversation<br>
which had become extremely repetitive and I lost the will to live.<br>
<br>
The references to "we can" and "cool tool" were references to earlier<br>
posts prior to your joining where we were told that x hundred modules<br>
were now packaged somewhere.<br>
<br>
The problems for us at CrossWire are - in short order to recapitulate:<br>
<br>
1) the previous provision of modules - particularly in the form of<br>
actual dependencies - caused a support nightmare as people kept coming<br>
to the mailing list "I got an Arabic module and I can not get rid of<br>
it!" - moving from depends to suggest is clearly a solution here.<br>
<br>
2) Installing via package manager renders the module manager helpless -<br>
modules are installed but appear uninstallable if in /usr/share/sword<br>
<br>
3) Unfortunately the better half of our modules are in various forms<br>
copyrighted. We got permissions to distribute, we got often enough<br>
permissions to redistribute but very few of our modern translations etc<br>
fulfills Debian's policies on being sufficiently free. So as a<br>
consequence you are left with packaging old, PD stuff but not the good<br>
stuff.<br>
<br>
4) When starting up without modules the package manager opens up and<br>
offers to install. This can happen from any source, but will usually<br>
happen via the internet. Most of our modules are small and I certainly<br>
have installed via dial-up a lot of exciting stuff. If you pre-install<br>
or take the package manager route you cut out this first step and<br>
subsequently people will take a while (or never) to realise that stuff<br>
is available for them - e.g our Turkish, Persian and Arabic content is<br>
all not free enough for Debian. Lots of our other languages the same. So<br>
by offering some stuff (old and limited range of languages) you are<br>
actually precluding that people realise what all _is_ available<br>
<br>
5) We _are_ extremely cautious at CrossWire re copyrights and have taken<br>
nearly superstitious amounts of care to keep only PD or modules with<br>
clear permissions in our repository - quite unlike a number of other<br>
projects. But even despite this - we had a share of nasty surprises when<br>
material advertised as PD was after all not PD. The most painful of<br>
these experiences where our Portuguese Bible and later a wonderful<br>
collection of maps. When we got the notification that these modules were<br>
not kosher we had them down in 5 mins flat (I was on IRC during latter<br>
episode and witnessed things) We can live with this risk, but we do not<br>
wish to take any responsibility for another project.<br>
<br>
6) absence of notification in the past about what we really think about<br>
module debs - this is the unfortunate result of ever entrenching upset<br>
with the lack of up to date stuff in Ubuntu's repos and the lack of<br>
response when we complained about the modules to whom we thought<br>
responsible for it all (not entirely correctly so). We had tried to get<br>
it updated in the past 2 years but got no where and a lot of us had<br>
ended up in a silly "stuff them!" attitude (Me included). Only finally<br>
sense returned and we made a new and more successful attempt at getting<br>
things right again,<br>
<br>
There were a few more reasons mentioned, but bottom line is that we do<br>
not consider the apt-get mechanism and the Ubuntu/Debian repos the best<br>
way forward for the modules.<br>
<br>
We are extremely grateful for the effort to package things up and create<br>
again a great resource on Ubuntu and Debian instead of the outdated<br>
stuff which is there right now.<br>
<br>
I am sure there are ways forward beyond this point right now-<br>
particularly also in the area of custom distributions in particular<br>
nasty or remote areas of the world, but can we for the moment leave this<br>
aside? Most of our modules _are_ redistributable (just not fit for<br>
inclusion in Debian's repos dyue to Debian's strict standards on<br>
freeness) and hence it should be easy to figure out custom distros for<br>
particular purposes.<br>
<br>
Again, there was no intention to upset, of shooting from the hip or of<br>
posting cease and desist letters. Acute exasperation at the<br>
repetitiveness of it all was the background to my terse last post<br>
<br>
in Him<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Peter<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br>THANK YOU!<br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>With best regards<br><br><br>Ледков Дмитрий Юрьевич<br>