Bibleworks ceases operation as of June 15, 2018

[Andrew G]

just heard about Bibleworks ceasing operation...

 

A special note to our friends…

BibleWorks has been serving 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 has become increasingly apparent over the last few years that the need for our services has diminished to the point where we believe the Lord would have us use our gifts in other ways.Accordingly as of June 15, 2018 BibleWorks will cease operation as a provider of Bible software tools. We make 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. We know that you will have many questions going forward and we will do our best to answer some of them here.

 

more info can be found on their website http://www.bibleworks.com

 

edit: title should read "Bibleworks WILL cease" since 6/15/18 hasn't passed

Edited June 1, 2018 by gugu009

[Mark Allison]

That's VERY sad news.

[Fabian]

That's VERY sad news.

Absolutely. A sad day for Bible students.

[JohnABarnett]

Ditto on the sad news, for the company and for the users.

 

For me it also triggers some relief that a couple of years ago I chose Accordance instead of BibleWorks.

Edited June 1, 2018 by JohnABarnett

[Battlesman]

Accordance/OakTree, might I make some recommendations?

 

1. Use this to your advantage; entice them over to Accordance.
2. Better yet, buy BibleWorks is a company and incorporate all their resources and licenses into Accordance. 
3. Lastly, don't let their fate become (y)our fate. I know Faithlife/Logos is the behemoth, but do whatever you can to compete with them.

[Clint Cozier]

Wow, that is very sad news indeed. They go back a LONG way and their product served me well for years. 

[Tim Hall]

Sad news indeed. I remember BibleWorks being the first Bible software I purchased (I was a PC guy & Accordance was only on Mac back then). A big loss.

[pbgroover]

Ditto - very sad news, was shocked when I saw the email today.

 

I have BW10 which I got before Accordance and there are functions that it does very well and very quickly, some that I haven’t found a way to replicate in Accordance. I use them together.

[jarcher]

Definitely felt a stroke of sadness this morning when I saw the email. Very sad news.

[Fabian]

Accordance/OakTree, might I make some recommendations?

 

• Use this to your advantage; entice them over to Accordance.
• Better yet, buy BibleWorks is a company and incorporate all their resources and licenses into Accordance.
• Lastly, don't let their fate become (y)our fate. I know Faithlife/Logos is the behemoth, but do whatever you can to compete with them.

I thought the same.

 

And I still miss some features which BW can do. Hopefully they come to Accordance.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

Edited June 1, 2018 by Fabian

[Michel Gilbert]

If Accordance ever offers a user lexicon like BW 10, I hope they will also offer a way to import user lexicon files from BW, which have a .bww extension, but are just .rtf files.

[A. Smith]

Sad to hear. But based on what I'm seeing on FB, there is a great opportunity here for Accordance. 

[Fabian]

If Accordance ever offers a user lexicon like BW 10, I hope they will also offer a way to import user lexicon files from BW, which have a .bww extension, but are just .rtf files.

 

Then Accordance would be in a similar situation like the church song presenting software Songbeamer.de which has an importer for ceased presenter software. 

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

 

BTW they have also an englisch UI

[Ιακοβ]

I have BW10 which I got before Accordance and there are functions that it does very well and very quickly, some that I haven’t found a way to replicate in Accordance. I use them together.

 

This!! I wonder what features people love about Bibleworks that aren't in Accordance?

 

For me, it is the ability to bring up a panel that lists all translations of a verse in one single panel. (This would be especially on the iPad where you can only put two bibles in parallel.  (Technically you can do a "research search" to bring up a list of all translations of a verse in the desktop app, but in practice it really doesn't come close to comparing to bible works)

[Fabian]

For me, it is the ability to bring up a panel that lists all translations of a verse in one single panel. (This would be especially on the iPad where you can only put two bibles in parallel.  (Technically you can do a "research search" to bring up a list of all translations of a verse in the desktop app, but in practice it really doesn't come close to comparing to bible works)

 

Like http://www.e-sword.net/ipad/ 

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[mgvh]

I'll be working on a longer response for my blog, but some quick thoughts:

• Yes, it is sad. BibleWorks guys (and I think they are all guys) were faithful business people who did see their business as a ministry.
• Yes, I really do encourage Accordance looking into acquiring rights to some of BW resources.
  • The Danker Concise Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament (2009) is the best 'light' lexicon before moving up to BDAG or EDNT.
  • Accordance has many fine atlas products, but The ESV Bible Atlas (Barrett and Currid, 2010) is my favorite, and there is both a concise and full version in BW.
  • Neither Accordance or Logos could match the number of Bible versions (English and many others) that BW provided in their base package.
  • The CNTTS resource with notated images of the original texts (mss: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 012, 032, 1141) is part of the base package. For text critical work and comparison of mss, this is outstanding.
• Some things BW does particularly that are not matched in Accordance or Logos:
  • The customizable, single verse versions view when I want to see lots of versions in parallel.
  • It's partly my familiarity with BW, but I found their notes and editor resources to be the easiest to use.
  • BW's verse list manager and word list manager are powerful and useful, and I use them regularly.
  • The BW Analysis tab is the best, because it can be set to display all the lexicon entries in a single window.
  • The BW Stats tool is easier to use than Accordance's and produces a more useful graphic.
  • The BW Resource tab does an excellent job of linking resources for a specific verse.
• It would be great if Accordance developed a converter to take all the .bww note files (which are just RTF files) and convert them into Accordance notes. (BW has a standard organization and labelling system for its notes files, but the tricky part is that BW allowed both chapter and verse notes.)
• Now that BW is closing, maybe it is possible for Accordance to work out a way to integrate the ton of free, user-created resources on the BibleWorks blog. In particular, check out the Modules, Synopses, and Versions. Lots of great stuff in there that's all public domain.

There are enough resources included in the base package (just check out the English versions alone not to mention all the additional Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Latin, ...) that someone could well be tempted to pay $199 to have access to them all.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

• . In particular, check out the Modules, Synopses, and Versions. Lots of great stuff in there that's all public domain.

There are enough resources included in the base package (just check out the English versions alone not to mention all the additional Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Coptic, Latin, ...) that someone could well be tempted to pay $199 to have access to them all.

This is one reason why an interoperable format is highly desirable, at least from a user perspective. Of course a common interchange format would do. But there are other implications for licensing and businesses of course.

 

Thx

D

[R. Mansfield]

This is one reason why an interoperable format is highly desirable, at least from a user perspective. Of course a common interchange format would do. But there are other implications for licensing and businesses of course.

 

A few years back, I ran into a family friend who was all excited about a law a politician he personally knew was trying to pass. The law would require all cell phone makers to use a standardized plug so that no matter where you were, you could plug into someone else’s cable and charge your phone. I told him it was a horrible idea. He asked why. I told him that besides stifling innovation by requiring electronics to use one specific technology that would one day be obsolete, more importantly, those cables were not the same. And I went on to explain the differences (this link is an equivalent summary of what I told him). 

 

The titles produced for Accordance are not ebooks. They’re not simple electronic versions of print books. Converting an Accordance title to Logos, BibleWorks, Wordsearch and back is not like converting a word processing document back and forth between Word, Pages, NotaBene, Mellel, etc. where the most important factor is to make certain that the same content can be viewed in any of those word processors. I would suggest that Accordance developers are more detailed-oriented than any other platform when it comes to identifying different kinds of text as well as hyperlinking to other resources. Simple comparisons with our competition speak for themselves. But this kind of detail that our developers add to a title means that it can’t simply be swapped back and forth, even if we did all agree on an interchangeable format. It’s just not going to work. And we continue to improve to our format, such as with the embedded charts in our genealogy module. Having a standard format that’s interchangeable would stifle improving upon formats that already exist. I realize that this kind of innovation is not important to everyone. Some folks just want to read the content. If that’s the case, Kindle versions, which are often cheaper, are adequate. Accordance allows you to do so much more, though.

 

[Λύχνις Δαν]

A few years back, I ran into a family friend who was all excited about a law a politician he personally knew was trying to pass. The law would require all cell phone makers to use a standardized plug so that no matter where you were, you could plug into someone else’s cable and charge your phone. I told him it was a horrible idea. He asked why. I told him that besides stifling innovation by requiring electronics to use one specific technology that would one day be obsolete, more importantly, those cables were not the same. And I went on to explain the differences (this link is an equivalent summary of what I told him). 

 

The titles produced for Accordance are not ebooks. They’re not simple electronic versions of print books. Converting an Accordance title to Logos, BibleWorks, Wordsearch and back is not like converting a word processing document back and forth between Word, Pages, NotaBene, Mellel, etc. where the most important factor is to make certain that the same content can be viewed in any of those word processors. I would suggest that Accordance developers are more detailed-oriented than any other platform when it comes to identifying different kinds of text as well as hyperlinking to other resources. Simple comparisons with our competition speak for themselves. But this kind of detail that our developers add to a title means that it can’t simply be swapped back and forth, even if we did all agree on an interchangeable format. It’s just not going to work. And we continue to improve to our format, such as with the embedded charts in our genealogy module. Having a standard format that’s interchangeable would stifle improving upon formats that already exist. I realize that this kind of innovation is not important to everyone. Some folks just want to read the content. If that’s the case, Kindle versions, which are often cheaper, are adequate. Accordance allows you to do so much more, though.

 

 

 

They did in fact pass such legislation I believe in Europe. There is always an issue with vendors producing something new merely as a lock-in vs actual innovation and I suspect concerns of that type on the part of customers drove some of it. Mind standardize power plugs for electrical supply in houses are very useful, so such standards do have their applications.

 

Back to the etext issue, I wouldn't suggest legislation either. And its not an ebook vs non-ebook issue really - the ebook formats do this also though they are simpler and many readers support many formats because the formats are known. It's possible to design interoperability in multiple ways. What I suggested when I wrote a lengthier paper on this problem is that open formats is the best way to go - document everything. It makes it possible to write translators or drivers. While standard formats are nice, usually they get bogged down in standards committees for a while, and then come out very bloated as every contributor wants their special piece - just look at XML based standards like this. But extensible customizable base formats are possible. The extensions can be ignored in translation. So yes the translation is lossy but it's possible. But I agree tool specific metadata does mean that they cannot just be moved over. My main concern with things like this though is that when a company does fold can I keep the data ? How easy is it ? How much of the metadata can I keep and so on ? Of course secret sauce is persisted in file formats and so there is a business impact.

 

Another thought extending the above I have had on this is that publishers could produce a base text with a good deal of internal mark up already in place in an open format. Then layers could be laid on top using extensions and these allow vendor specific customizations to be provided on top of the base portable text. My model was of a text with more and more layers on it with metadata of varying kinds. When I think about the text of the GNT for example I think of the text - the actual Greek characters as layer 0. Then the versification is layer 1, tagging of one kind or another layer x,y,z and so on up. It can in fact be done that way too.

 

Ultimately this is a way bigger change that any of us are in a place to force, nor in fairness is it a thing to be forced. And as I said if it were to happen it would impact business and licensing models. But it also means that a large portion of the basic investment in a text can be preserved and ported to a new tool when needed. It also means that data sets can be shared for collaborative study and scholarly critique and cross-checking of experiments.

 

Anyhow, that's just how I think about it when wearing my open source developer hat.

 

Thx

D

[jarcher]

Rick, we need to talk about the number of icons on your toolbar.

[Abram K-J]

There's an app for that!

[Abram K-J]

I read that too fast, jarcher... was thinking about the menu bar. There is indeed an app for that (Bartender) that works quite nicely, that Rick probably already knows about. But then I looked at Rick's dock icons! 

[Rich]

Another issue — most of these texts I would imagine are required to be DRM'ed by the content providers, which I would presume would make open standards for content and markup even more problematic. 

 

There isn't a day where I wish the books I had bought in Kindle would work on Apple iBooks (or occasionally vice versa).  There isn't a lot of incentive for the vendors to do this, but I imagine much of the rub or difficulty is the likely proprietary DRM models as much as the markup or storage architecture of the content.

 

They did in fact pass such legislation I believe in Europe. There is always an issue with vendors producing something new merely as a lock-in vs actual innovation and I suspect concerns of that type on the part of customers drove some of it. Mind standardize power plugs for electrical supply in houses are very useful, so such standards do have their applications.

 

Back to the etext issue, I wouldn't suggest legislation either. And its not an ebook vs non-ebook issue really - the ebook formats do this also though they are simpler and many readers support many formats because the formats are known. It's possible to design interoperability in multiple ways. What I suggested when I wrote a lengthier paper on this problem is that open formats is the best way to go - document everything. It makes it possible to write translators or drivers. While standard formats are nice, usually they get bogged down in standards committees for a while, and then come out very bloated as every contributor wants their special piece - just look at XML based standards like this. But extensible customizable base formats are possible. The extensions can be ignored in translation. So yes the translation is lossy but it's possible. But I agree tool specific metadata does mean that they cannot just be moved over. My main concern with things like this though is that when a company does fold can I keep the data ? How easy is it ? How much of the metadata can I keep and so on ? Of course secret sauce is persisted in file formats and so there is a business impact.

 

Another thought extending the above I have had on this is that publishers could produce a base text with a good deal of internal mark up already in place in an open format. Then layers could be laid on top using extensions and these allow vendor specific customizations to be provided on top of the base portable text. My model was of a text with more and more layers on it with metadata of varying kinds. When I think about the text of the GNT for example I think of the text - the actual Greek characters as layer 0. Then the versification is layer 1, tagging of one kind or another layer x,y,z and so on up. It can in fact be done that way too.

 

Ultimately this is a way bigger change that any of us are in a place to force, nor in fairness is it a thing to be forced. And as I said if it were to happen it would impact business and licensing models. But it also means that a large portion of the basic investment in a text can be preserved and ported to a new tool when needed. It also means that data sets can be shared for collaborative study and scholarly critique and cross-checking of experiments.

 

Anyhow, that's just how I think about it when wearing my open source developer hat.

 

Thx

D

[Julia Falling]

Like http://www.e-sword.net/ipad/ 

Bildschirmfoto 2018-06-02 um 07.28.55.png

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

 

How about this?

 

[R. Mansfield]

Rick, we need to talk about the number of icons on your toolbar.

 

That’s my rightmost screen. I have a three-monitor setup. There’s always a lot to look after :-)