Hi Jeremy ...........
I've made a couple of alterations, but I really like what you are saying. Subject to any other comments from this list, how about:
Dear Zondervan,
I use the NIV regularly and would find computer study tools useful. However, I use neither Microsoft Windows nor Apple Mac OS. I use Gentoo Linux, one of many (mostly compatible with each other) distributions of the Linux operating system. The Linux operating system is growing but is still somewhat a niche offering. Nonetheless, I would love to be able to use the NIV on Linux and would be willing to pay a reasonable price for such a capability. More importantly, God's work could be furthered through such an effort. My suggestion for the easiest (and perhaps most cost-effective) way to support Linux would be to sell a module for the pre-existing Sword project from CrossWire (not to be confused with e-Sword). The team leader for copyright issues and negotiations is Daniel Glassey - [EMAIL PROTECTED] The members of CrossWire would be more than willing to assist with the technical hurdles involved in creating the module and to help you with any problems you may encounter. If you wish, one of them would create the module unassisted given the source texts, and would supply you and no one else with the completed work. They also actively develop the Sword library and the various frontends available for it, so your developers would not need to deal with maintainence. Sword frontends are already available for most major platforms (including Windows,
Linux, Mac OS X, and various forms of Unix), and I can attest to the maturity and quality of the BibleTime frontend I currently use.
However, CrossWire is a volunteer-based nonprofit organization which does not have the financial resources to act as an e-tailer for the modules. Therefore, it would be up to you to sell the modules and deal with the financial aspects. Nonetheless, this approach would seem simpler for you than developing a full-fledged Linux suite of tools. If you would rather deal solely with your own software, you may want to consider using a cross-platform tool such as Qt from Trolltech Inc. (http://www.trolltech.com) or the community-developed wxWidgets (http://www.wxwidgets.org) when
developing your software, as programs using these tools can be compiled on all major platforms with few or no changes.
From my understanding (though I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice), the copyright risk involved in distributing a Sword module is minimal. Though the GNU General Public License used for Sword is often considered "viral", its effects only cover software and not data modules used with covered software. In addition, Sword has the capability to use modules which are actually encrypted and thus for all practical purposes impossible to use without the proper access codes. It would thus be more difficult to illegally copy Sword modules than the .pdb files used for Laridian MyBible on PalmOS.
I hope that God's work may be furthered by the use of the NIV on Linux! Your time is appreciated.
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