Ubuntu Christian Edition [LWN.net]

Ubuntu Christian Edition is a free, open source operating system geared towards Christians. It is based on Ubuntu Linux and is suitable for both desktop and server use. Along with the standard Ubuntu applications, Ubuntu Christian Edition includes the best available Christian software. The latest release contains GnomeSword, a top of the line Bible study program for Linux based on the Sword Project. The recently released Ubuntu CE v1.2 is based on Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS.

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Ubuntu Christian Edition

Posted Sep 7, 2006 11:44 UTC (Thu) by dave_craddock (subscriber, #32466) [Link]

Did these guys get permission to use the Ubuntu name?
From their web site this is not immediately obvious.

If they don't need to get permission can I bring out
the Ubuntu Satanist edition with 100MB FREE virgin sacrifice
images.

Ubuntu Christian Edition

Posted Sep 7, 2006 15:20 UTC (Thu) by filipjoelsson (subscriber, #2622) [Link]

If GnomeSword is top of the line, please God: Help us!

The biggest problem with the Sword based software is that it is confined to working with old translations (90 years and older), unless you are German and buy the German translation module.

Other than that, GnomeSword crashes a lot. So, I tried to make a checkout and find the bug. But the tree was not comprehensible. There were many source trees for different versions, and the active ones were not the ones you would expect (eg GnomeSword2 is not developed in the GnomeSword2 source tree, which at the time I checked had been dead for a few years).

This software is far from the commercial stuff for Win32 or Mac, it's even far from where the commercial stuff was 10 years ago when I last had a look at it.

The theological community in FOSS is not large enough to support two projects of this kind (much less so since neither support the usage of copyrighted translations, with the above exception) - so it would seem logical to make the choice between Bibletime and GnomeSword, and get to work on compatibility with modules for commercial software. In the meantime I'll get buy with dead-tree versions of the stuff.

In the same manner I wonder, why _two_ Ubuntu based christian editions? IIRC there has been Fedora and Debian packages for the relevant software for years.

Ubuntu Christian Edition

Posted Sep 7, 2006 20:25 UTC (Thu) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link]

Is there still not a module for the World English Bible? It's a (still not totally finished) attempt to make a modern translation in the public domain, by updating the 1901 ASV. Definitely usable already.

I suppose the (far too small) theological community of the Free Culture movement really should rally behind the WEB ...

Ubuntu Christian Edition

Posted Sep 14, 2006 15:27 UTC (Thu) by leandro (guest, #1460) [Link]

The biggest problem with the Sword based software is that it is confined to working with old translations (90 years and older), unless you are German and buy the German translation module.

Please join us in trying to convince the © holders to make available their current texts. Thus far we have succeeded with Iberian Portuguese and the New English Translation, and I still hope to have Brazilian Portuguese in the near future. Other languages, such as French, haven't changed so much and thus this is not such a big ißue.

But I guess by and large your point will remain until the Bible Societies change their current, strictly commercial, mindset. They have a problem understanding the program is free but modules can be sold, and that the standard is OSIS, not whatever comes from Logos.

The theological community in FOSS is not large enough to support two projects of this kind

Actually the problem is the Gnome-KDE divide, which isn't likely to go away as they represent two quite different philosophies both in development and usability. As the free software community reaches critical maß, this should be leß of an ißue in due time; meanwhile, by all manners do choose the Ichtus KDE-based distro if you like, or help GnomeSword along.