5 replies to this topic

[Christo Janse Van Rensburg]

Is there any way to download en masse? A monthly automatically generated archive/installation, github, SVN or eqivalent?

The only alternative I have found is a few torrents but these are distastefull if only because one has no idea just how complete they are, and of course there is probably copyrighted content mixed in.

Edited by Christo Janse Van Rensburg, 09 July 2013 - 05:36 AM.

[journey]

Each person's needs would be different, so I doubt anything like this would be possible. It would also involve database comparisons - neither of which are available to interact with each other. In short, I think something like this would be nearly impossible. Even if it was possible, the bandwidth required for all of those downloads would crash BibleSupport.

[Christo Janse Van Rensburg]

A yearly compilation of the the majority should suffice, and it could be hosted seperately by a third party. I'm just used to the open source ways of dealing with massive ammounts files I suppose.

 

EDIT: just saw project gutenburg has official torrents of compilation cd's and dvd's, you might do that.

Edited by Christo Janse Van Rensburg, 10 July 2013 - 08:45 AM.

[Josh Bond]

This idea originates from another website that sells theWord modules. The idea is that you pay the website money in exchange for downloading all the modules created during the last month or quarter in various "bundles". Since he is selling access to the bundles, he cannot include copyrighted modules. The bundle automatically installs all modules from the last month or quarter.

 

First, I have no interest in selling modules or bundles. If figure if people wanted to pay money for Bible software, they would do exactly that with Logos or WordSearchBible or OliveTree. The whole point of the free Bible study software ministry is the world-wide free distribution of Bible study material.

 

Now as for the core idea of having a monthly and quarterly bundle, I don't have an issue with that. If someone wants to create such a bundle each month and quarter, and then upload it, I'm happy to create a "Download Bundle Section" for that. In fact, we could even include Copyrighted modules in the bundle because we do not sell modules.

 

I haven't seriously pursued this approach because I don't cater to "module collectors".

 

I cater to people who really want to study the Bible--not so much people who want to download thousands of modules for the pure sake of having thousands of modules. Most people seriously interested in Bible study want to cherry pick resources to build their library, rather than blindly downloading thousands of modules and then not understanding what titles they have (much less what theology they have).

 

Mass installing modules results in "Bible study clog". When a bundle installs all modules from the last quarter automatically, it clogs your Bible study view (tab views), and will slow down e-Sword. e-Sword just can't handle an unlimited number of modules without serious performance penalties.

 

Thus, it has not made sense for me to pursue this. But if someone else wants to create the archive bundles, I have no issue with it.

[Christo Janse Van Rensburg]

If I had enough experience with authoring such bundles I would offer to do it but my knowledge is mostly limited to using them alone.

 

A good model I know of is to create an installer that updates from the main online repository/ies to the local computer and gives the end user the choice of what seperate modules or even sub-bundles to download and in a simmilar fasion allows the user the choice of what to install, like autopatcher does for microsoft updates. This would reduce potential clog and/or extra server load provide a easy way of spreading the modules offline if that happens to be the need. Not everyone has access to internet and putting as much as possible modules on dvd's or cd's is a easy way of spreading the material to needy congregations for example.

 

For myself it is partially that, you never know who you might need to help in what way.  And partially I admit my compulsive archivist nature, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it, plus I know better than to take my own internet connection for granted.

Edited by Christo Janse Van Rensburg, 10 July 2013 - 03:00 PM.

[Josh Bond]

The bundles would be created as zip files and self-installing EXE files with Innosetup.

 

I agree, auto-updating infrastructure would be cool.