[sane-devel] vendor linux drivers for Epson scanners

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Steffen Evers <mlone at forevers.de> writes:

> Hello!
> Maybe all of you know, but for me this is very new. I have called Epson
> and asked them about Linux support for the Stylus RX 500 and they told me
> that THEY provide Linux drivers for several printers and scanners, too.
> Unfortunately, currently not for the RX500.

Nitpicking, I guess, but anyway ...
I hate it when people confuse EPSON KOWA with EPSON.  EPSON does not
officially support Linux.  They do however, pay EPSON KOWA to do the
job for them (well part of it at least :-).

To get at least basic support for the RX500, all you would have to do
is add the USB id to epson_usb.c and recompile.  If that's too much of
a hassle, you could also add

  usb 0x04b8 0x0807

to your epson.conf file.

Support for the RX500 (aka RX510) is planned for iscan-1.7.0.

> So, maybe some of you would like to check this out:
> http://www.epkowa.co.jp/english/linux_e/index.html
>
> And they license it under LGPL and GPL !

As Henning already mentioned, part of the code of "Image Scan! for
Linux" is covered under the EPSON KOWA Public Licence.  While this
licence is compatible with the LGPL, most people would not call it
a free licence.  It is most certainly not DFSG free :-(

However, the epkowa backend does not *link* with any EKPL'd code and
comes under the same licensing conditions as most of the other SANE
backends.  What the backend does is dynamically load modules for the
Perfection 1250 and Perfection 1260 if required.  People that do not
use these scanners do not need these non-free modules.  People that
do, can use the plustek backend.

With the upcoming release of iscan-1.6.0 (scheduled January 16), it
also loads a non-free module for the Perfection 3170.

The frontend provided by "Image Scan! for Linux" links with a EKPL'd
library, making it essentially non-free.

> So, you could use it for SANE, can't you?
>
> Have fun!
>
> I will check the scanner drivers for the 2400 tonight...

The Perfection 2400 is supported by both the epson and epkowa backends
so you should have no trouble getting it to work.
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen                            EPSON KOWA Corporation, ECS
GnuPG key: 6BE37D90/AB6B 0D1F 99E7 1BF5 EB97  976A 16C7 F27D 6BE3 7D90
Penguin's lib!       -- I hack, therefore I am --               LPIC-2