Reading this blog will prove to you that I love Bible software. Part of the reason is I use it in my day job as a pastor. But I’m also a tech junkie!

The only problem with good Bible software is that it often is expensive. Before you free software producers or fans comment, I am not saying all good Bible software is expensive. Some great programs are free or very inexpensive, especially in the mobile sphere.

As someone who has been using Bible software for nearly two decades and been covering it for many years, I have heard all the arguments for and against charging for Bible software.

Free Software Proponents

The Bible is not owned by any one person. If a Christian truly loves God and his church he should give away his services. After all you cannot out give God. Software is only bits/bytes and not a real tangible product, so it should be free since the recipient isn’t really getting a thing. Also the cost to produce one copy is the same as it is to produce a thousand copies of the software itself. Only the delivery mechanism costs money and in the case of downloads, that cost is negligible.

Pay Software Proponents

A servant is worthy of his hire. How can a person produce good quality software without receiving something to cover his living expenses or her costs of development (computers, software to code with, advertising, paying publishers for content, electricity, food, clothing, shelter, etc)? And if one charges for software he or she can also offer quality support or training for the software to people who are not skilled enough to figure out how to use it on their own.

What’s the Answer?

There may be other arguments in both camps, but those are most of the common ones. So who is right? Put another way, “Should Bible software be free or should it be pay?” The answer is a resounding YES!

It is true that some people have a calling to help the church and Christians by producing tools to help study the Word, learn about discipleship via eBooks, and organize their personal Bible related content like sermons and Bible studies, notes, highlighting and bookmarks and Christian writings in computer software tools. Just like a pastor is called to a full-time vocation of preaching and teaching and caring for the flock, a software developer is called to write software. In order to do that the person will have to be paid or have a way of providing for him or herself. In some cases, people have made enough money in another career that they can take care of those provisions themselves. In the case of e-Sword developer Rick Myers, he used to say on his web site that God had blessed him in the computer industry so now he is donating his time and talents to producing his great and free Bible software. For him and people like him, Bible software should be free and only the resources that cost too much for him to provide are pay software.

In the case of Logos Bible Software, the engine to read their content is actually free. To get all the use of their tools you will have to pay for one of their packages. For them, and companies or individual programmers like them, they have chosen to offer some free content and some pay content. It works making them one of the largest Bible software companies around.

Finally, there is the model of great products like BibleWorks, PC Study Bible, QuickVerse, Laridian PocketBible and more. They charge for their software and for much of their content. Sometimes you can find free books to add onto their packages. The result is a base of users who love their products and keep them in business.

The point is that no one model fits everyone. If you believe that anyone producing anything for the benefit of the church, including Bible software, should give away their services, then you have a number of options to choose from. You can use those products never needing to pay once for any Bible software. But if you don’t mind paying, then you can also get some great content for a small fee sometimes or for many thousands of dollars if you are so inclined and financially blessed.

Conclusion

I can find no Biblical mandate that says all Bible software (or another other service to the Christian church) should always be free. However, there is some support for paying and providing for those who serve the church. Thank God for great people who devote their time to creating the incredible tools available to us today, sometimes for free but often for very reasonable costs. Keep it up! We need you and appreciate you greatly!!

Everyone’s all a twitter, er, I mean a flutter over Apple’s iPad. I’ve written a number of  posts here about it. I am actually excited about it. But there is a possibility that the iPad may end up hurting eBook readers.

I have a Kindle and have a friend who enjoys his Sony reader. I love being able to pull out my Kindle and sample a chapter of a book that someone recommends. I love having a number of translations of the Bible as well as a dozen or more books available in a small device. I love my Kindle. But I think what I really like is that most books are much cheaper on the Kindle than in paper form.

Now that Apple is letting the publishers control much more of the pricing for their soon to be released iPad, Amazon is trying hard to keep publishers in the fold. Could the cheaper eBook prices go away or at least go up as a result? It is insane that in most markets where competition drives prices down for consumers, this is one arena where it might go up. The reason is that consumers are not as important as the publishers, who are clutching control of their content with a death grip.  If these companies do not get the publishers on board there is nothing to sell to consumers. So they are willing to temporarily ignore the best interests of the customers, paying more to publishers in the form of control over pricing. The result is more expensive books for readers.

I believe this is a temporary thing; electronic publishing is going to make books much cheaper eventually. But in the interim those of us with Kindles may have to pay more thanks to Apple’s deal with publishers in the days leading up to iPad’s launch.

Gizmodo had this posted today.

I thought it was funny.

I am reviewing QuickVerse 2010 for an upcoming issue of Christian Computing Magazine. Here is a screen cast I have created for the review. Look for the review in December 2009.

Please notice that I had not entered my Twitter account info, so in the demo video when I tried to post to Twitter it failed. My fault, not QuckVerse’s.  It will post to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Delicious. Pretty good program, but is bit limited compared to others.

The day I’ve been looking forward to is here.  The countdown ends at four.  For the last few days @logos, on Twitter, has been counting down from 10 and everyone assumed it would end later this week at one. But today it finishes with 4!

I get to help the folks at Logos announce Logos 4, their latest version of Bible Study software.  It is a huge rewrite and quite a departure from the previous version.  These guys don’t mess around with incremental updates that few see any real differences.  They don’t do this very often. But when they do, you see the difference.  Just look at the screen shots below.

Above is the old Logos 3.  The familiar home screen that houses most of what Logos has to offer.  You see the Passage, Exegetical and Word and Topic Study guides.  When I first saw this I was amazed and my whole system of searching for content in Bible Study changed.  Still there in Logos 4, the guides are better due to the level of indexing that Logos 4 does at the beginning of installation.  What used to take minutes now takes about a minute, depending on how many tools you have installed.

However, as you can see below, Logos 4 opens up and gets in your face with a vastly different opening interface.  The guides are all there, in the menu at the top. And you can drag and drop them onto the toolbar. I have done that with one guide. Look at the little icon next to the long box just above my email address – at least the blurry blob that would be my email address.

Also, with Logos 4 your license and preferences are synced with their servers.  This makes for both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that you can install it on multiple computers and it will essentially have the same content and configuration. But you will have to be online to do this.  Here comes the cloud.

I will have much more to say about Logos 4 in my Christian Computing Magazine article this month.  Be looking for it. But until then, here are some more screen shots.

View Full Album

View Full Album

View Full Album

View Full Album

Also if you want to check out the official Logos videos from Morris Proctor, then you can go here.