Re: Creating a "SWORD-over-network" protocol for remote SWORD repo access?

You can ask for parts via the study application . I do not think anyone has yet decided to build an app around that. But I see no reason why not. It probably needs dusting off and some further work to make more universally useful, but it is uo and running and always available.

Sent from Outlook for iOS

----------

From: sword-devel <[email protected]> on behalf of Aaron Rainbolt <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2024 5:40 AM
To: SWORD Developers' Collaboration Forum <[email protected]>
Subject: [sword-devel] Creating a "SWORD-over-network" protocol for remote SWORD repo access?

As it stands, SWORD users face some disadvantages when accessing SWORD

resources - they have to be downloaded in their entirety, installed

onto the end user's system, and then stay there for as long as the

user wishes to access them. While it is possible and even easy to copy

modules from one system to another in theory, the system that views

the modules must still *have* the modules in order to view them.

Since SWORD already is basically a universal Bible-related data access

system, it seems to me like it could be useful to take the concept one

step further - allowing access to SWORD modules over the network,

where a viewing device must only request the part of a module it wants

to view, and simply discards it when it's done with it.

Some advantages of this over what SWORD already does:

* The device used for viewing no longer has to be the device used for

storing the modules. Individuals can stand up a "SWORD server" and

then access the modules from any network-capable SWORD client on any

device.

* The device used for module storage can be located on the Internet,

allowing individuals to access a potentially large library of modules

without installation.

* Assuming a properly secured, encrypted connection can be established

and the server is not obvious as a SWORD server, individuals in

persecuted countries could potentially access SWORD modules over the

Internet, allowing them to access the Bible without leaving a trace on

their devices.

* Organizations with permission to redistribute copyrighted texts

could provide those texts via a SWORD server, allowing them to be

accessed by network-capable SWORD clients (i.e., this could

potentially allow people to legally access texts such as the ESV and

NIV in their favorite SWORD client rather than being forced to resort

to clunky websites, proprietary software, or piracy). Server-side,

open-source DRM measures could be enforced to make downloading entire

modules for offline use more difficult, providing some level of

peace-of-mind to copyright owners.

Advantages this would have over existing "access the Bible online" solutions:

* It would provide a standardized interface for accessing the Bible

and Bible-related resources over the Internet, rather than every

project coming up with its own storage conventions and network

protocols.

* People could theoretically use almost any SWORD client to access the

modules, allowing access to the Bible using a native desktop or mobile

application, rather than having to resort to a web browser, clunky

"cross-platform" (read: doesn't work quite right anywhere) app, or a

tracker-laden mess like YouVersion.

* Since the SWORD server itself would essentially be a SWORD client

that provided access to its modules over the network, one SWORD server

could daisy-chain to another one, thus acting as a proxy. This way

small, non-suspicious websites could provide access to major SWORD

servers via a proxy, making it easier to help individuals in

persecuted situations to access the Bible.

* Given the above proxying mechanism, blocking access to SWORD servers

could become very difficult, for much the same reasons why blocking

access to Matrix chat is very difficult. (In a world with unlimited

time and development resources, a full federation system could be

implemented so that anyone could access any module that anyone else

hosted... but that's almost without question overkill and impractical.

Just proxying would be cheap to implement and powerful in use.)

* Anyone could self-host a SWORD server and provide themselves, their

family, their community, or even the world easier access to the Bible

and Bible-related resources.

* Advanced features like fast Lucene search could be provided

server-side, giving a much faster search experience than almost any

modern Web-based Bible application I've used.

* If used alongside a feature like BibleSync, it could be a powerful

tool for churches and Bible studies to use. People could simply

connect to the church's SWORD server and enable BibleSync, then be

able to follow along perfectly with everyone else, with access to the

same resources that their pastor, study leader, etc. is actively

using. No prep work needed (beyond having the proper app installed and

knowing how to point it to the right server).

In the event this idea is actually worth pursuing, it seems to me like

there would be four things needed to make it a reality.

* A SWORD network protocol specification. This would probably be the

hardest thing to get right since it has to be gotten right the first

time and then only incrementally updated in the future in a

backwards-compatible manner for best results.

* An actual SWORD server implementation. Once the specification

exists, writing this should theoretically be easy.

* Server access support in the SWORD library itself. This would enable

existing SWORD clients to adopt network support with little effort.

* Adoption of the new feature by SWORD frontends. This of course is up

to (and at the discretion of) each SWORD frontend developer, but if

the SWORD library made accessing network resources act almost

identically to accessing local resources, it would hopefully be easy

to take advantage of the feature, and thus it would hopefully gain

traction.

So there's my brain-dump of all the reasons I think this is worth

doing and how I think it should be done :P Let me know what you think

and if you have any advice or feedback. This whole thing popped into

my head tonight and I just wanted to share it to see if it's worth

pursuing, or if maybe something similar to this was tried already in

the past.

Thanks for reading my wall of text. God bless.

_______________________________________________

sword-devel mailing list: [email protected]

http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel

Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page

_______________________________________________
sword-devel mailing list: [email protected]
http://crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page