[be] Re: [task #8022] interoperabillity with other content managers

[Teus Benschop]

Hi Nathan,

I can understand why you think that it was me, and can live with that.
But it was not me, this time. I should have stated the speaker for each
comment, rather than leaving people guessing who it might have been.

My own view on this matter is as follows:

1. I understand that priorities needs to be set by you when new tasks
come in, so that the most important ones will be done first, and the
lesser ones later.

2. It seems to me that storing Paratext's data in a mercury repository
cannot be so difficult that documentation would be needed in order to
understand it and its structures, and that simply connecting to the
repository would allow one to see these structures. However, if the
structures are much more complicated than just storing data, I would not
try to blindly write to the repository, but rather investigate the
matter and be sure than nothing breaks out there.

3. Fortunately there are no legal ways to prevent somebody who is
writing software to interconnect and interoperate with other software.
Rather, the current tendency seems to be the opposite. When we look at
for example how Microsoft is pressurized by the legal powers to open up
their APIs to third-party developers, one can safely assume that this is
the way forward. I do not mean that pressurizing you is the way forward,
but you opening up your data structures for third-party developers. 

Regards,

Teus.



On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 08:13 -0800, Nathan Miles wrote:
> >
> > The requester himself should consider carefully his motives. If they are
> > solely about "support" then this is probably best addressed by having a
> > carefully considered and documented structure and specification, which would
> > make independent faithful implementation simple - as long as no deliberate 
> > or
> > careless quirks are introduced in the "other" implementation.
> I guess this is Teus speaking here.
> 
> In order to "carefully consider and document" this internal data 
> structure I would have to decide
> what other task(s) is going to be left undone.
> 
> If I had time I could give you a long argument about
> about the long list of tasks I have which feel to me to be of more value 
> to the
> user community than this task. That too would require leaving some other 
> task undone.
> 
> If there were a legal reason for you to not write to a complicated data 
> structure produced by
> P7 I would "demand" you not do that. As it is I can only "request" and 
> state that in my opinion
> the advantages of trying to share the P7 repository in its current state 
> are enormously outweighed
> by the costs of doing so.
> 
> I have tried to state this opinion in the least offensive way possible
> I would appreciate you stating yours in the same way and leave off 
> speculation concerning my "motives".
> 
> Nathan
>