The LDS Linux Project

Discussions around miscellaneous technologies and projects for the general membership.
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munaish
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#61

Post by munaish »

rmrichesjr wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:31 pm Has there ever been any project not backed by a commercial entity that has received Church authorization to use any Church-owned content?

While I have been accused of being an idealist on occasion, and while I have no official information, from what I have heard and seen discussed on relevant topics, I would estimate there is zero chance for a volunteer-based project to receive any authorization for any Church-owned content.
I'm a shameless idealist a large percentage of the time. So, I won't judge.
munaish
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#62

Post by munaish »

russellhltn wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:34 pm Eons ago, when 8-bit roamed the desktops and there were no real standard, the conventional wisdom was to find the the software you wanted to run, and then buy the Hardware/Operating System that ran it. To go the other way was to put the cart before the horse.

I think that advice still stands.

The question is, what software will members want to run (besides the church stuff)? I'm not real optimistic of any widespread acceptance of anything based on Linux simply because there's too many popular software packages that don't have a LInux version.

Instead, you may want to consider securing an existing OS to meet your goals.
I agree with your last sentence. I don't think we really need a new Linux distribution. We just need to collaborate about software to put on existing ones (there's not reason to stick with just one Linux distribution, IMO). We could easily just make a script to install it all automatically.

I don't think we're going for widespread acceptance and Linux-conversions here. So, I don't think we need to worry about what your *average* person would want, to be honest. I think it's more of a niche thing. I think it's important to have niche things, however. If we always cater to the general populace for everything we do, a lot of people are going to be phenomenally bored and underserved.
munaish
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#63

Post by munaish »

You could do the same thing with Windows and Mac, for that matter.
munaish
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#64

Post by munaish »

We could just make a package installer (because people aren't all going to want to install everything).

I'm not saying I'm against making a distribution; I just think this would be a lot easier, since it's something I would know how to do (and I have no idea how to make a Linux distribution).

Anyway, although I'm idealistic by nature (and I like that), I've been trained to make practical suggestions in recent years (via heavy use of Q/A sites, because people tend to complain or lecture any time someone says something idealistic). If the suggestions were disgruntling, I'm sorry about that.
Last edited by munaish on Thu Oct 21, 2021 9:06 pm, edited 11 times in total.
munaish
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#65

Post by munaish »

richardsontb wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:07 am . . . Also, I used a text editor on Puppy for years. It was called something like Leaf.

. . .
Do you mean Leafpad, the text editor that comes with Lubuntu? Among the bare-bones text editors out there, that one is my favorite.
richardsontb
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#66

Post by richardsontb »

rmrichesjr wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:31 pm Has there ever been any project not backed by a commercial entity that has received Church authorization to use any Church-owned content?

While I have been accused of being an idealist on occasion, and while I have no official information, from what I have heard and seen discussed on relevant topics, I would estimate there is zero chance for a volunteer-based project to receive any authorization for any Church-owned content.
This is okay. I trust the Church. Do you know what happened to the online content? It was always online until the new Windows app. Is it online for Mac?
marnofi wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:10 pm We could just make a package installer (because people aren't all going to want to install everything).

I'm not saying I'm against making a distribution; I just think this would be a lot easier, since it's something I would know how to do (and I have no idea how to make a Linux distribution).

Anyway, although I'm idealistic by nature (and I like that), I've been trained to make practical suggestions in recent years (via heavy use of Q/A sites, because people tend to complain or lecture any time someone says something idealistic). If the suggestions were disgruntling, I'm sorry about that.
I like this idea. And you know how to compile the apps for an ARM processor?
marnofi wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:33 pm Do you mean Leafpad, the text editor that comes with Lubuntu? Among the bare-bones text editors out there, that one is my favorite.
That is the name! . . .

I have been reading, The Book of Mormon; A Reader's Edition, edited by Grant Hardy. He is using the 1920 edition of the scriptures of the Church. He says it is in the public domain. It is the only way that the Isaiah chapters make any sense to me. Since I have asked before, maybe they will give us permission to use the 1920 one. Mr. Hardy says, "The 1920 text differs from the current LDS version by only about 150 words out of nearly 270,000--- not counting more than a hundred instances of "exceeding" being changed to "exceedingly."

Having said all this, I totally understand the Church needing to keep a tight reign on use of our scriptures. The Slackware website used to have a statement to the effect, "Slackware is a copyrighted name. If you name your project something similar to Slackware, people will come to us for support of your product that we know nothing about." The scriptures of the Church and the policies for their use are necessary just like the copyrighted name of Slackware.

I don't want to be tangential, so please let me know if I am.
richardsontb
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#67

Post by richardsontb »

I stand corrected. The Church content in online. Why would we need anything more than a web browser?
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sbradshaw
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#68

Post by sbradshaw »

richardsontb wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:46 am I have been reading, The Book of Mormon; A Reader's Edition, edited by Grant Hardy. He is using the 1920 edition of the scriptures of the Church. He says it is in the public domain. It is the only way that the Isaiah chapters make any sense to me. Since I have asked before, maybe they will give us permission to use the 1920 one. Mr. Hardy says, "The 1920 text differs from the current LDS version by only about 150 words out of nearly 270,000--- not counting more than a hundred instances of "exceeding" being changed to "exceedingly."
No permission is required from the Church to use public domain content. Permissions.ChurchofJesusChrist.org doesn't give legal advice to Church members – their responsibility is to protect the content that the Church does currently have copyright for. So if you ask for permission to use a 1920 edition of the scriptures, they won't be able to give you permission – because they don't own it (it's public domain). Currently in the United States, works printed before 1926 are in the public domain.

In fact, because the revisions in the 1979, 1981, and 2013 editions of the scriptures were editorial, rather than creative*, my understanding is that even the newest editions are public domain, except for Official Declaration 2, which was published in 1978. The Church holds the copyright on introductions, chapter summaries, study helps, and page layout, but the actual text of the scriptures in English, except for Official Declaration 2, is in public domain. I've found these JSON files of the scriptures to be useful: https://bencrowder.net/scriptures-in-json/.

*Whether or not a new edition of a public domain work qualifies for new copyright protection depends on whether the changes are judged to be "original," "substantive," and "creative." For example, these types of changes generally can't qualify for copyright protection on their own:
• Punctuation changes and fixing typos (the changes aren't "creative").
• Changes that bring the work closer to its original manuscript (the changes aren't "original").
• Adding a table of contents (the layout may be protectable, but the list of books is not "creative").

This is the list of changes in the 2013 edition of the scriptures, for your own judgement – I am not a lawyer:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/ ... ts_eng.pdf
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
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sbradshaw
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#69

Post by sbradshaw »

rmrichesjr wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:31 pm Has there ever been any project not backed by a commercial entity that has received Church authorization to use any Church-owned content?

While I have been accused of being an idealist on occasion, and while I have no official information, from what I have heard and seen discussed on relevant topics, I would estimate there is zero chance for a volunteer-based project to receive any authorization for any Church-owned content.
I've submitted requests to use Church content through Permissions.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Some of my requests have been denied, and some have been approved. Here are a couple of examples:

• Last year, I was working with a few people on a project to gather and index stories from general conference talks. We requested permission to post talk excerpts on our website. The request was denied. (The copyright office doesn't always give reasons, but I think there was a concern about stories being taken out of context of the full talk. It was also a broad request – "stories from all talks since 1971" – that may have been too general.)

• I maintain an unofficial Church music website. At the end of 2019, I requested approval to post the lyrics from hymns, children's songs, and youth songs that are owned by the Church on specific pages of my website. The request was approved. (I had the pages already built and provided a working online demo. I think that being specific and providing context of exactly what it would look like, rather than a general concept, helped significantly. I think it also helped that I was adding content to an existing public website – something stable that could be used to establish trust – rather than a completely new project that could go any direction.)

Hope that helps!
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
rmrichesjr
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Re: The LDS Linux Project

#70

Post by rmrichesjr »

richardsontb wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:46 am I like this idea. And you know how to compile the apps for an ARM processor?
Most open-source or source-available apps are pretty much as easy to compile for ARM as for any other architecture. It's fairly rare for anything distributed as source to be picky about what processor architectures it compiles for and runs on. Since the details would be mostly off-topic for the forum, I won't post here. Instead, if you find something you'd like to compile for ARM for which source code is available and send me a Private Message, and I'll be happy to help you figure out how to compile it.
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