[sane-devel] VueScan and SANE

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi,

On Mon, Dec 31, 2001 at 02:43:40PM -0700, Maurice Hilarius wrote:
[...]
> In looking at what he provides I believe that he is likely breaking the GPL 
> already..
[...]
> And his blatant admission that he is using SANE code in his product really 
> seals it for me, at least:
> "I use the same sanei_scsi_open routine that SANE uses"

We (at least me) know that Vuescan uses sanei_scsi. Just grep through
the code, it's not hidden.

Concerning GNU GPL: This file (and most of the other sane backend
related stuff) is GPL+SANE exception (see header + LICENSE). The
intention of this exception was probably to allow linking against
backends without making the binary itsself GPLed. In this case, only
part of backends is used (sanei_scsi). At least it's not that clear
that this is forbidden by the license. But I'm not a lawyer.

On the other hand it would be nice to at least mention the use of SANE
code somewhere on the website or in Vuescan itsself. And if the SANE
source code was modified before linking it must be published as
written in the GNU GPL.

Bye,
  Henning