[sane-devel] where to put firmware files?

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 05, 2002 at 09:35:47PM +0100, Jonathan Buzzard wrote:
> 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.

There are differnt firmware files for the same vendor and product ids.
E.g. all the gt6801 based scanners (there are many) use the same ids
and the firmware is differnt for most of them. You need the right one
to get it working. That's one reason why I want to keep the name of
the firmware as it is.

> 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.

I would be happy if they at least put the firmware on a server where
it can be downloaded without some magic windows installer. Having
permission to actually put them on our own servers or even into the
distribution is one more step :-)

Bye,
  Henning