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what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:48 am
by say_hello
hello dear all - good day dear MX experts,
 

today i have a question - not in reagard to mx-linux but to other software.
what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

look forward to hear from you

Re:   what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:50 am
by JayM
Their website says what happened. About whether or not they've open-sourced their stuff or what they plan to do with it, go ask them.

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Mon Mar 09, 2020 5:23 am
by m_pav
I sent them an email asking if they'd consider working with the Open Source movement to facilitate porting it to Linux and in doing so, making a pathway towards ongoing development

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:40 pm
by say_hello
hello dear m_pav hello dear JayM

many thanks for the quick reply - happy to hear from you. Well i guess that this is interesting. They replied me and said that the stopped the work and the support.
Hmm - i have no clue what really happened in the background.

What about the relaesed /(sold) versions that were out in the world .... There many many copies in the world - eg. here in German libraries - at ther Universities and colleges.

Anyway - it is a nice software.


Do you have any idea if there is another project working on a simmilar pathway - with simmilar goals and a software that has capabilities like Biblework - i have heard about some open-source-projects.

But i do not have any overview on the whole scene.

have a great day.

greetings Say hello ;)

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 6:34 pm
by andyprough
say_hello wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 5:40 pm Do you have any idea if there is another project working on a simmilar pathway - with simmilar goals and a software that has capabilities like Biblework - i have heard about some open-source-projects.
For free, open source software I use bibletime, which is in the Stable Repo section of the MX Package Manager. You can download several hundred free bibles, books, commentaries, map sets, and other study aids through the bibletime software.

For free, proprietary software there's Logos, which you can use in a web browser (logos.com). Logos also sells packages of additional study materials at various levels of cost.

The Net Bible (https://netbible.org) is a very impressive free online study tool.

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 9:07 pm
by JayM
Do you have any idea if there is another project working on a simmilar pathway - with simmilar goals and a software that has capabilities like Biblework - i have heard about some open-source-projects.
Search the web.

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:44 pm
by m_pav
I received a response from them, it was about as useless as it can get. Their options for a "buy-out or other" requires the new entity to build a complete new code for the project from scratch, none of their code will be released under any circumstances and all licences remain their property. They claim their techs can not provide assistance to/for a new entity to learn the specifics of their code and while I can appreciate their thoughts, they dismiss that there may be people, or groups of people a thousand times more capable than they were in the coding arena. With such OTT requisites, why would anyone bother?

Flogging a dead horse people, flogging a dead horse.

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:34 am
by Pierre
BibleWorks served the church for 26 years by providing a suite of professional tools aimed at enabling students of the Word to “rightly divide the word of truth”. But it became increasingly apparent over the last few years that the need for our services had diminished to the point where we believed the Lord would have us use our gifts in other ways. As of June 15, 2018 BibleWorks ceased operation as a provider of Bible software tools. We made this announcement with sadness, but also with gratitude to God and thankfulness to a multitude of faithful users who have stayed with us for a large part of their adult lives.
so, just goto using e-sword

YES - - it's an Windows based program, that also does run well under ./wine

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:59 am
by Head_on_a_Stick
m_pav wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2020 11:44 pm I received a response from them, it was about as useless as it can get.
Well that's not very Christian... :frown:

I'm pretty sure Jesus would have used the GPL :-)

Anyway, there are several front-ends for SWORD available in Debian:

https://packages.debian.org/buster/xiphos

https://packages.debian.org/buster/bibletime

https://packages.debian.org/buster/diatheke

EDIT: and you'll need one of the sword-text packages as well. Use the --install-recommends option to pull in the reference notes & dictionaries for the King James version.

Re: what happened to bibleworks !? How do they proceed the work - is it now free and opensource?!

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 12:25 am
by JeffA
We did have a discussion of Bible Software a year or so ago here: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=47799

My guess that giving others access to Bibleworks code may be complicated by the fact that, if I'm not mistaken, they've sold third party copyrighted materials with the software. So they probably don't want to risk unauthorized distribution of those works and violate whatever licensing agreements they have with the publishers.

But then, I know little about copyrights or software, so it is just a guess.