[sane-devel] where to put firmware files?

[Jonathan Buzzard]

Why not rename the firmware files into a none clashing namespace,
then they can all go into a single directory. A suitable
naming scheme would be based on vendor and product ID's of the
USB device. So if my HP ScanJet 5200C had a firmware file it
would be called something like 03f00401.usb nad could go in a
directory called something like /usr/share/sane/firmware or
/usr/local/share/sane/firmware.

The next thing is to contact the manufactures of the scanners and
ask politely if we can include a copy of the firmware in the SANE
distribution. As long as we are not asking them to put the firmware
under the GPL or someother free license I am sure they won't mind.

We also need to make it clear that the firmware is *not* under the
GPL, is the copyright of the individual scanner manufactures. A
file named COPYRIGHT in the firmware directory which list the
copyright owner of each firmware file would be sensible.

I can imagine that Debian at least will have problems with firmware
because it is not under a suitable free license. Even though I am
a longtime Debian user I think they are just plain stupid on matter
like this. They don't like the licensing on the Computer Modern fonts
for heavens sake.

JAB.

-- 
Jonathan A. Buzzard                 Email: jonathan at buzzard.org.uk
Northumberland, United Kingdom.       Tel: +44(0)1661-832195