www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/08/25/2220201
If you look around the pews in your church next Sunday morning, you may see a few GNUs in the pews. They are software developers, system administrators, and church leaders.
Click Here appearance of Web sites, growing number of participating believers, and the growing number of free and open source software applications for church and missions organizations are all evidence of a new movement afoot among Christians. They are looking to build their churches' technology infrastructure on a GNU foundation. While it's difficult to put numbers on the growth, the free and open source software movement is gaining ground among Christians. Free and open source software for the religious GNU's roots lie squarely with an atheist named Richard M Stallman. Yet, GNU -- meaning GNU's Not Unix -- was born out of the Golden Rule -- a biblical precept that strikes home with pretty much every Christian. While Stallman's Kantian ethics would clash at various points with Christian theology, the Golden Rule is common to both. In fact, in personal correspondence, Stallman told me he believes the Christian Church should be one of the major advocates of free software. Indeed, religious folks of various faiths have been on the free and open source software pilgrimage for some time now. SourceForge has been hosting software projects for Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and Muslims since 1999. Browsing through SourceForge, one can find nearly 200 applications and development libraries pertaining to religion. At least 83 of those have cropped up since the beginning of 2003, and roughly 30 launched this year. There are a number of reasons to migrate to GNU/Linux and open source applications in general. Many believers and churches are seeking alternatives to expensive, proprietary applications that frequently do not live up to expectations. In addition to having a low-cost, technologically superior platform, many Christians are happy to discover that they can legally pass a copy of GNU/Linux and the free applications that run on it to their church, as well as to their neighbors down the street. Most churches like "canned" applications that run out of the box, or at least require minimal technical skill to install and configure. Church leaders -- whatever corner of the world they live in -- can choose among many applications that frequently run on multiple operating systems. Bible, church management, and worship applications are just a few of those available or under development.
The SWORD Project is a cross-platform development library for Bible study applications. The project provides different Bible translations, commentaries and lexicons, and other important Christian documents as modules. Developers basing their applications on the SWORD Project can allow users to add modules at their pleasure.
GnomeSword, launched the following year, and is currently maintained by Terry Biggs and company. Users can perform searches and keep notes, as with most other Bible study applications. Both have a small footprint -- less than 15MB to download and roughly 4MB installed. BibleTime and GnomeSword combined have been downloaded nearly 100,000 times.
Perl Bible is a Bible study application available in Czech and English for GNU/Linux systems. One of its great strengths is the ease with which it can be installed and used. The developer, Ondra Masak, designed the simplistic interface for non-techies. Aside from Czech translations, it offers the King James Version as well as the Darby and Young's Bibles. The World English Bible, a public-domain Bible in modern English, is also available.
FAQ page, InfoCentral has been used by a church with more than 2,500 members. Originally developed for Central Baptist Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, InfoCentral now appears to be splitting into two projects, the new one aimed at churches with up to 20,000 members.
Asaph was developed by Daniel Azuma, a worship leader in a small Seattle church. It's a full-featured music database and lyrics projector with plenty of control over the fine details. Right now it's in beta testing stage, with the first production release due out in the next several months. It currently supports GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows systems -- you just need the Java Virtual Machine.
OpenSong both offer the ability to project song lyrics on wall screens for Mac and Windows systems. Timothy Ebenezer, a young developer in England, started the OpenLP project in February, and already has quite a following. Both projects support multiple languages and plan to port to GNU/Linux.
Penguin in the Pew," inspired two evaluation CDs to help churches evaluate the GNU/Linux operating system and the various church-related applications. They are great tools for demonstrating the capabilities of free and open source software to "non-techie" church leaders, many of whom have never even heard of GNU/Linux. Both will include various Christian-related applications and have choices exemplifies GNU's flexibility. So far, quite a few locals are signing up, and two local radio stations will be discussing the project.
Christian Linux LiveCD, which will weigh in at about 100MB and include J-Sword. Both projects are very promising, and could be a boon to consultants who work with churches.
LightSys Technology Services, an organization of professional IT missionaries to missionary organizations. These consultants specialize in free and open source software.
Kardia, a management application that runs on Centrallix. They are also behind the Christian Open Development Network, a site bound to become a one-stop resource for Christian developers.
the Freely Project, a Web site run by Scottish believer Ben Thorp. Freely is preparing to offer ticket-based support to churches and also has an IRC channel on FreeNode (#freely). The project is fairly new, but has been growing steadily over the last two months. The site offers a few articles and forums for discussing various aspects of free and open source software. Linc Fessenden, a former pastor, runs the Linux 4 Christians site, which has been listing Christian-related Linux applications since 2000. They also boast an email list of 65 members, many of whom have joined within the last two months. The range and professional quality of many of the applications available for churches and other religious and non-profit organizations is impressive, and the number of languages and operating systems supported by the various projects is amazing.
Christian Open Developer Network, the Freely Project, and L4C are part of a web of information for any Christian or ministry interested in using or developing free and open source software.
Matheteuo Christian Fellowship, a small house church in Charlotte, NC Don is also author of "Penguin in the Pew" and "IT as Ministry." He is interested in hearing from readers about their interest in and use of free and open source software.
You think slinging around some big words and concepts makes you right or even vaguely, slightly, kinda right? What it makes you is a person who is willing to attack instead of understand. And if you're saying to yourself you understand, you don't if you are attacking. BTW: I am Christian, but I would say the same thing if this were directed towards Judaism, Islam, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, ignert, whatever. When man discovered logical thought, we were able to devise a new religeon known as science. What I'm interested in is seeing how man will change with the next great ephiphany, and what that ephiphany will consist of. But in the mean time, why tear othes down that arn't hurting you? It clearly shows you are still a rational creature who thinks these types of actions are ok.
Mac or Windows have been the only choices for such groups. Many religious people do not even know what GNU/Linux is. As a GNU/Linux user - religious or not - which operating system and applications would you suggest they use? The non-religious have little knowledge or understanding of the importance of computers to various religious ministries. That does not invalidate the use of computers in religious environments. Religious organizations often have to track large numbers of people - so...
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