Lynn, On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Lynn Allan wrote:
> With it's orientation to children/missionaries/non-techies, ... I haven't really commented on the targets of this, but I think it deserves a little outside input. You can consider what I have to say or not. It's your project, and even if you eventually decide that the end product is completely useless, you'll have gained considerable knowledge of Sword, so that may be of some benefit. Children and missionaries are pretty widely differing groups. In fact, children represent many widely differing groups, based on age & gender, and missionaries represent many widely different groups, based on mission, sending agency, field of service, etc. I don't know that you can create a tool that is meaningfully distinct from BibleCS and yet somehow serves these groups better. Children are going to use their parents' computers. If they're very young (just learning to read) you'll want to present a big interface so it's easy for them to click the right buttons and you'll want to present big, easy-to-read fonts. The issue for children might come down to keeping their attention with eyecandy and slicing the data into easily digestible chunks. Missionaries are people too. By and large, missionaries don't run around with hardware any more outdated than the rest of us. (Okay, maybe not US, but normal people who upgrade every few years.) Also, any missionary who found the interface I just described personally beneficial probably doesn't belong on the field. (Using the above interface as a tool for missions, possibly in literacy or something like that might be reasonable.) Missionaries tend to know the Bible pretty well, and tend to be pretty smart people, at that. I think most sending agencies require at least a BA, and most of their missionaries have degrees in Biblical studies, missiology, or such. They probably would want a better interface than a tree control. As an aside, having used most of the Bible software offerings out there, I can say tree controls are probably the most onerous interface possible unless you are completely clueless about a book. (In other words, they're great for GenBooks, horrible for Bibles. Again, any missionary who likes this interface because he doesn't remember where 1Samuel is in the Bible probably needs a long, long furlough.) As for the system requirements target.... There's always OLB, OLBDOS, and various other programs that were current at the time their computers were new. ....just some thoughts. > I'll check with Chris Little and gnu-legal. I would almost prefer to release > LcdBible as public domain than GPL (to avoid GPL-virus issues), but will > comply with The SWORD Project's expectations. Is it possible to release > LcdBible as "dual license"? If LcdBible uses Sword or any other GPLed code, it must be licensed under the GPL exclusively. Code written by Stallman that we have incorporated means there's not even the option of permitting another license currently. If LcdBible were written completely from scratch, you could do dual licensing as you saw fit. > Also, my impression is that I have the option of retaining copyright > rather than relinquishing copyright to CrossWire. Yes, definitely. CrossWire does not request copyright assignment for anything other than code that goes into Sword. None of the front-ends are owned by CrossWire except (I assume) The SWORD Project for Windows (BibleCS). --Chris _______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
