Like many people with technological and Greek backgrounds, I aspire to have/make all the relevant texts for NT studies available in the most open and usable formats and licenses, as a basis for writing analytical and educational software. The holy grail is a reasonably modern text, good enough for language education if not for academic use, which can be CC-BY-SA licensed like Wikipedia, and then collaboratively maintained online without any licensing concerns.
I recently came across a pair of GNT and LXX texts at the Antioch site.[1] According to the person who hosts them there, they circulated online for some years, were corrected or updated by many different people, and are now orphaned, so that no-one has a clear claim of copyright on their current forms.
The GNT is a ~2 Meg Word Doc, and is introduced as follows:
It has been suggested to me that Tischendorf was the original basis of this text, though the seeming references to USB3, NA26 and NA27 (I don't read Latin, but that's what it looks like) leads me to expect copyright issues. Can anyone here tell me anything about the history of this version of the text, or any information that might help me establish it's copyright status or risk?NOVUM TESTAMENTUM
Textus secundum III. editionem UBS, omnino cum XXVI. et XXVII. editionibus Novi Testamenti Graece, Nestle et Aland editoribus, concors, praeter minutias interpunctionis.
My current plan is to pick about ten textual and interpretive cruxes and compare them with the major academic Greek texts, to see if this text has been conformed to one or another in any consistent way. If so, then I won't be using it. Otherwise, I think it's a candidate to release under CC-BY-SA.
[1] http://www.hancock.dircon.co.uk/antioch.htm (see under "Free Extras", halfway down the page)