IRC Conference/summary/2010-01-24

Present:
 * Ze'ev Clementson (zeev)
 * Azriel Fasten (realazthat)
 * Efraim Feinstein (EfraimDF)
 * Shira Fischer (SHF)
 * Yudi Rosen (yrosen)
 * Yakov Shafranovich (yakovsh)
 * Aharon Varady (Aharon)

Discussion:
 * Aharon and yakovsh discuss our policy with respect to use of non-free OCR programs. Policy summary: "our policy is to only use open source tech within our open siddur processes but to accept materials contributed that may have used non-free tech."
 * yakovsh brings up issues of differences between Israeli and US copyright law with respect to what's in the public domain. Aharon says that we will refer questions to our legal advisors when they come up.
 * Aharon reports Gabriel Wasserman's contribution of a Mahzor for Shabbat Chanukkah, which is mostly derived from Seder Avodat Yisrael; EfraimDF points out that it turns the transcription of all of Shabbat davening into a proofreading problem.
 * Aharon reports Juan Meija's contribution of a Spanish Portuguese siddur (and Spanish translation); it is in DavkaWriter format and requires conversion to a format we can use.
 * EfraimDF reports: 25% of the Book of Psalms from an OCR of the 1917 JPS is now corrected. More transcribers are needed to help complete the job faster.
 * zeev asks about the digital copy of the 1917 JPS at Karaite Korner. EfraimDF indicates that we never received a response to our request.  Aharon offers to try again.
 * zeev reports progress on the encoding of the Singer Prayer Book, which was transcribed by the Internet Sacred Texts Archive.
 * EfraimDF reports that coder Jessi Abrahams is looking into the encoding of the haggadah used in the proof of concept.
 * EfraimDF reports that the automated transliterator is almost reintegrated into the current transforms; Aharon points out that its complete functionality is blocked on the qamats qatan/sheva na markup; EfraimDF reports the testing stage of the automated qamats qatan/sheva na marker coded by Raphael Finkel.
 * realazthat describes the developers' encoding application and the progress toward coding it
 * realazthat and EfraimDF report difficulties in finding a good path from JLPTEI to PDF in the browser; non-ideal solutions are proposed
 * Aharon asks if non-encoded texts can be made available in an easy to download package before they have been entered into the database; EfraimDF indicates that it is possible, but would require someone to code the packaging tool