Open source GEDCOM 6 application?

[Gjest]

I am looking for a genealogy program, preferably open source, which
uses GEDCOM 6 as its native file format. Anyone ever heard of an
application like that?

[Paul Hardy]

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:58:30 -0700, junk.fulton wrote:

I am looking for a genealogy program, preferably open source, which
uses GEDCOM 6 as its native file format. Anyone ever heard of an
application like that?

Is GEDCOM 6 a reality? I thought it was still a draft xml-based format

P

[Steve W. Jackson]

In article <[email protected]>,
Paul Hardy <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:58:30 -0700, junk.fulton wrote:

I am looking for a genealogy program, preferably open source, which
uses GEDCOM 6 as its native file format. Anyone ever heard of an
application like that?

Is GEDCOM 6 a reality? I thought it was still a draft xml-based format

P

<http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FAQ/frameset_faq.asp?FAQ=faq_gedcom
..asp> includes a link to download the 6.0 standard in PDF format. The
date of that draft is January 23, 2002. I'm beginning to wonder if
they'll ever get it finalized.

= Steve =
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama

[Trevor Jenkins]

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:16:10 -0500, Steve W. Jackson <[email protected]> wrote:

In article <[email protected]>,
Paul Hardy <[email protected]> wrote:

Is GEDCOM 6 a reality? I thought it was still a draft xml-based format

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FA ... faq_gedcom
.asp> includes a link to download the 6.0 standard in PDF format. The
date of that draft is January 23, 2002. I'm beginning to wonder if
they'll ever get it finalized.

The last time I could be bothered to check GEDCOM 5.5 was still considered
a draft. Though as FamilySearch.org only makes copies of 5.5 available
packaged up as a Microsoft EXE file (and I'm running a different operating
system) my sudden new found enthusiasm to find out has already expired.

Regards, Trevor

<>< Re: deemed!

[Gjest]

Thanks. I think I may look into GenXML instead.

Bob Velke wrote:

Steve said:

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FA ... faq_gedcom
.asp> includes a link to download the 6.0 standard in PDF format. The
date of that draft is January 23, 2002. I'm beginning to wonder if
they'll ever get it finalized.

Stop wondering. They've already announced that they aren't going to finish
it nor make any other significant changes to GEDCOM which suits their
purpose in its present condition.

[Bob Velke]

Steve said:

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FAQ/frameset_faq.asp?FAQ=faq_gedcom
.asp> includes a link to download the 6.0 standard in PDF format. The
date of that draft is January 23, 2002. I'm beginning to wonder if
they'll ever get it finalized.

Stop wondering. They've already announced that they aren't going to finish
it nor make any other significant changes to GEDCOM which suits their
purpose in its present condition.

Bob Velke
Wholly Genes Software


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[Steve W. Jackson]

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] (Trevor Jenkins) wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:16:10 -0500, Steve W. Jackson
[email protected]> wrote:
In article <[email protected]>,
Paul Hardy <[email protected]> wrote:

Is GEDCOM 6 a reality? I thought it was still a draft xml-based format

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Home/FA ... faq_gedcom
.asp> includes a link to download the 6.0 standard in PDF format. The
date of that draft is January 23, 2002. I'm beginning to wonder if
they'll ever get it finalized.

The last time I could be bothered to check GEDCOM 5.5 was still considered
a draft. Though as FamilySearch.org only makes copies of 5.5 available
packaged up as a Microsoft EXE file (and I'm running a different operating
system) my sudden new found enthusiasm to find out has already expired.

Regards, Trevor

Re: deemed!

I too run "another operating system".

I have a copy of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard here on my system in PDF
format. It's dated January 2, 1995, and specifically indicates that
it's the final version. You can get a copy from my web site at
<http://homepage.mac.com/stevejackson/> if you want by choosing the
Genealogy Files item there.

= Steve =
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama

[Leif B. Kristensen]

Steve W. Jackson skrev:

I have a copy of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard here on my system in PDF
format. It's dated January 2, 1995, and specifically indicates that
it's the final version.

That pretty much sums up the conclusion that GEDCOM is effectively dead.
Any standard that has not been maintained for over ten years, should be
considered "dead" by any measure.

Particularly Linux genealogy software developers have paid far too much
attention to the GEDCOM "standard" in their development, taking little
heed to the fact that this "standard" is a relic like the body of
Lenin.

Now, I wonder when anybody would consider it appropriate to write a new
genealogy data exchange standard. The new standard should probably not
take too much legacy from a standards developed mostly as a proprietary
interchange within a religious society, and thus avoid all the
LDS "tags" and the like that the GEDCOM is obnoxiously full of.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE

[Steve W. Jackson]

In article <[email protected]>,
"Leif B. Kristensen" <[email protected]> wrote:

Steve W. Jackson skrev:
I have a copy of the GEDCOM 5.5 standard here on my system in PDF
format. It's dated January 2, 1995, and specifically indicates that
it's the final version.

That pretty much sums up the conclusion that GEDCOM is effectively dead.
Any standard that has not been maintained for over ten years, should be
considered "dead" by any measure.

There's a huge difference between something being "maintained" and
something being "updated" or "changed". Take, for instance, RFC 822,
which is the standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages.
That standard is still in use today for email. It's most certainly
*not* dead -- by any measure.

Particularly Linux genealogy software developers have paid far too much
attention to the GEDCOM "standard" in their development, taking little
heed to the fact that this "standard" is a relic like the body of
Lenin.

Now, I wonder when anybody would consider it appropriate to write a new
genealogy data exchange standard. The new standard should probably not
take too much legacy from a standards developed mostly as a proprietary
interchange within a religious society, and thus avoid all the
LDS "tags" and the like that the GEDCOM is obnoxiously full of.

I think that Linux genealogy software developers have paid no more or
less attention to the GEDCOM standard than those of any other platform.
The fact is that interest in genealogy outside the LDS church's own
membership has grown wildly in recent years, and the Internet has had a
significant part to play in that. I suspect that the process of getting
a "standard" devised and accepted has become more complex in the modern
computing world. And so the church has likely elected to stick with
what it knows rather than get deeply into that process.

The existing GEDCOM 5.5 standard is still deemed suitable for the LDS
church's purposes, which focuses primarily on its own membership
submitting information for their specific requirements. Given that, I
suspect that the best hope for getting a newer, more modern standard
developed will be for some development organization to take the lead.
But it's not cheap. How many commercial genealogy software developers
are there out there with the kinds of resources needed to take on such a
task? Too few, I fear.

= Steve =
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Sun, 02 Jul 2006 12:48:45 -0500, "Steve W. Jackson"
<[email protected]> declaimed the following in
soc.genealogy.computing:

There's a huge difference between something being "maintained" and
something being "updated" or "changed". Take, for instance, RFC 822,
which is the standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages.
That standard is still in use today for email. It's most certainly
*not* dead -- by any measure.

Usable, but superceded by: RFC 2822 (just as 821 [SMTP] is

superceded by 2821)

RFC 2822 - Internet Message Format
Network Working Group P. Resnick, Editor
Request for Comments: 2822 QUALCOMM Incorporated
Obsoletes: 822 April 2001
Category: Standards Track

--
bieber.genealogy Dennis Lee Bieber
HTTP://home.earthlink.net/~bieber.genealogy/

[Kerry Raymond]

That pretty much sums up the conclusion that GEDCOM is effectively dead.
Any standard that has not been maintained for over ten years, should be
considered "dead" by any measure.

I would be tempted to argue that a standard actively used but not needing to
be maintained in 10 years was a success!

More seriously, whatever GEDCOM's warts, it is a survivor. And despite the
number of variations/incompatibilities of specific implementations,
nonetheless a lot of data is successfully exchanged using it.

There is frequent talk of updating GEDCOM, much of around the use of XML.
More recently we've seen the need for geocoding discussed on this group. But
will any of it ever happen?

What is needed for a standard is either:

a) a forum where all the key stakeholders can get together and agree on some
new format? (e.g. a formal standards body) or
b) a single significant player to come up with a new format and have enough
"clout" to make everyone else go along with it.

As examples, the size of bank cards and credit cards (so they all fit in
machines all over the world) arises from a formal standards body. Whereas,
PDF arises from a single significant player (Adobe).

In the case of GEDCOM, it has historically been the decision of one
significant player (the LDS) and I don't see anyone attempting to usurp the
LDS's role as the significant player. If the LDS was to revise GEDCOM, I
suspect most of the software developers would incorporate the revised GEDCOM
in their product. However, if just one software developer came out with a
revised GEDCOM, I think it would probably not be taken up by other
developers.

Kerry

[Hugh Watkins]

Kerry Raymond wrote:

That pretty much sums up the conclusion that GEDCOM is effectively dead.
Any standard that has not been maintained for over ten years, should be
considered "dead" by any measure.


I would be tempted to argue that a standard actively used but not needing to
be maintained in 10 years was a success!

More seriously, whatever GEDCOM's warts, it is a survivor. And despite the
number of variations/incompatibilities of specific implementations,
nonetheless a lot of data is successfully exchanged using it.

There is frequent talk of updating GEDCOM, much of around the use of XML.
More recently we've seen the need for geocoding discussed on this group. But
will any of it ever happen?

What is needed for a standard is either:

a) a forum where all the key stakeholders can get together and agree on some
new format? (e.g. a formal standards body) or
b) a single significant player to come up with a new format and have enough
"clout" to make everyone else go along with it.

As examples, the size of bank cards and credit cards (so they all fit in
machines all over the world) arises from a formal standards body. Whereas,
PDF arises from a single significant player (Adobe).

In the case of GEDCOM, it has historically been the decision of one
significant player (the LDS) and I don't see anyone attempting to usurp the
LDS's role as the significant player. If the LDS was to revise GEDCOM, I
suspect most of the software developers would incorporate the revised GEDCOM
in their product. However, if just one software developer came out with a
revised GEDCOM, I think it would probably not be taken up by other
developers.

remember a gedcom is basically a readable and editable text file
like csv

if you concentrate


Hugh W

[Kerry Raymond]

remember a gedcom is basically a readable and editable text file
like csv

Indeed, every GEDCOM is a text file, but not every text file is still a
GEDCOM.

But perhaps I am missing your point?

Kerry

[Leif B. Kristensen]

Steve W. Jackson skrev:

I think that Linux genealogy software developers have paid no more or
less attention to the GEDCOM standard than those of any other
platform. The fact is that interest in genealogy outside the LDS
church's own membership has grown wildly in recent years, and the
Internet has had a significant part to play in that. I suspect that
the process of getting a "standard" devised and accepted has become
more complex in the modern computing world. And so the church has
likely elected to stick with what it knows rather than get deeply into
that process.

Yes, of course, that's the whole problem with GEDCOM. It was designed as
a data exchange standard to be used for getting the LDS members'
research results into the Utah mainframe. Nothing else. But soon, every
genealogy application developer saw this as a free data exchange
standard, and jumped on the bandwagon by supporting some more or less
half-assed "GEDCOM compatibility".

Never mind that half of the tags are specific LDS events.

Never mind the totally missing support for UNICODE. Who've ever heard
about ANSEL?

Never mind the totally absent support for patronyms, which in my part of
the world was what everyone used instead of surnames.

Never mind that if program A supports multiple names per individual,
while program B doesn't, there's no rule to tell which name from
program A should be imported into program B.

Never mind a broken data model, where the redundant "family" is a
central entity, introducing endless possibilities for data
inconsistency.

Never mind that this "standard" has been unmaintained for ten years, and
lacks support for a lot of concepts central to genealogical research.
Hence, every genealogy application developer invents his own
proprietary "extensions" of GEDCOM. That's what we've got, and it's
probably no less than what we as customers deserve for being so naïve
that we actually believe that "GEDCOM" is a comprehensive standard for
exchange of genealogy data.

The existing GEDCOM 5.5 standard is still deemed suitable for the LDS
church's purposes, which focuses primarily on its own membership
submitting information for their specific requirements. Given that, I
suspect that the best hope for getting a newer, more modern standard
developed will be for some development organization to take the lead.
But it's not cheap. How many commercial genealogy software developers
are there out there with the kinds of resources needed to take on such
a task? Too few, I fear.

It's not the LDS church I'm at issue with for making an interchang
format for serving their own needs. To that end, the GEDCOM may serve
them well as far as I'm concerned. The real problem is that nobody
seems to be interested in developing a real standard.

For the genealogical community, GEDCOM has probably done more harm than
good, by providing developers with an immature "standard" and left it
at that.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE

[Peter J Seymour]

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

For the genealogical community, GEDCOM has probably done more harm than
good, by providing developers with an immature "standard" and left it
at that.
I would take issue with that. Despite its many shortcomings, what Gedcom

did was to create interest in using computers in genealogy. In that it
was very successfull (some would say too successful). However, any idea
of a 'standard' was probably doomed from the start. Software developers
don't want standards, they want their own proprietry systems which lock
customers into their products. This, as well as an apparent lack of
understanding of genealogical principles and of data structuring, may
help explain why there are so many different forms of Gedcom today. I'm
not saying software developers are incompetent villains, I'm just trying
to identify some of the influences at work in the Gedcom story.
There is a possible solution to the problem (and it doesn't involve XML).
Let's see what happens over the next few years.
Regards
Peter

[Leif B. Kristensen]

Peter J Seymour skrev:

Leif B. Kristensen wrote:

For the genealogical community, GEDCOM has probably done more harm
than good, by providing developers with an immature "standard" and
left it at that.

I would take issue with that. Despite its many shortcomings, what
Gedcom did was to create interest in using computers in genealogy. In
that it was very successfull (some would say too successful).

You've got a good point there.

However,
any idea of a 'standard' was probably doomed from the start. Software
developers don't want standards, they want their own proprietry
systems which lock customers into their products.

Exactly. There are of course a couple of notable exceptions to this
rule. Tom Wetmore of LifeLines and Bob Velke of The Master Genealogist
are both very keen on standards, interchangeable formats, and open
documentation of their data models.

Bob Velke wrote a very insightful posting on the Genealogy-XML mailing
list on Jan 31, 2004, describing the situation:

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GenealogyXML/message/1803>

This, as well as an
apparent lack of understanding of genealogical principles and of data
structuring, may help explain why there are so many different forms of
Gedcom today. I'm not saying software developers are incompetent
villains, I'm just trying to identify some of the influences at work
in the Gedcom story.

Yes. Most of the data models underlying present genealogy databases were
developed in the nineties. At that time, both insufficient computer
power and maybe immature concepts called for somewhat simplistic data
models.

There is a possible solution to the problem (and
it doesn't involve XML). Let's see what happens over the next few
years.

That sounds interesting. Can you elaborate a little?

For my own part, I'll rather gut a proprietary database to get at the
data directly, than trying to transfer data via GEDCOM. I transferred
my former TMG database to my own PostgreSQL/PHP application by
transformation of the FoxPro files to SQL command files via some Perl
scripts and the DBD::XBase module. I didn't lose anything, but as my
data model in some respects are simpler, and in other more
sophisticated, some data which I consider secondary were discarded. The
main thing was that I had full control over the process.
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
http://solumslekt.org/ | Cruising with Gentoo/KDE