[sane-devel] discussion: Future of SANE-project

[m. allan noah]

the project is composed of many individuals, each with different 
goals/interests. The part of the website you quoted does not suggest to me 
that we are gunning for TWAIN, just that SANE is a better design. 

however, history is FULL of better designs that did not make it for 
cost/political reasons. technical superiority != market penetration.

TWAIN is well established, well supported, and represents 90% of the 
existing install-base. This is not likely to change even if we all dropped 
our attempts to maintain backends and focussed entirely on browbeating the 
mfgs/oems. and since this is something that most of us are not interested 
in, we as individuals do not tend to do it.

if you dont mind my asking, explain your interest in sane. why does it 
matter to you if it supplants TWAIN?

allan

On Mon, 12 Jul 2004, David N. Paules wrote:

> I am really confused :)
> I was under the impression that the SANE project was proposing a better alternative to the TWAIN interface. Better, meaning that the backend is written once and is cross platform. That's what I understood from the intro page on the web-site (I pasted part of the intro here for your convenience).
> 
> <snippet from intro page on www.sane-project.org>
> If you're familiar with TWAIN, you may wonder why there is a need for SANE. Simply put, TWAIN does not separate the user-interface from the driver of a device. This, unfortunately, makes it difficult, if not impossible, to provide network transparent access to image acquisition devices (which is useful if you have a LAN full of machines, but scanners connected to only one or two machines; it's obviously also useful for remote-controlled cameras and such). It also means that any particular TWAIN driver is pretty much married to a particular GUI API (be it Win32 or the Mac API). In contrast, SANE cleanly separates device controls from their representation in a user-interface. As a result, SANE has no difficulty supporting command-line driven interfaces or network-transparent scanning. For these reasons, it is unlikely that there will ever be a SANE backend that can talk to a TWAIN driver. The converse is no problem though: it is pretty straight forward to access SANE devices through a TWAIN source. In summary, if TWAIN had been just a little better designed, there would have been no reason for SANE to exist, but things being the way they are, TWAIN simply isn't SANE.
> </snippet>
> 
> I guess without an image or in depth technical explanation, I am having a difficult time understanding where SANE and TWAIN operate on different levels, as you indicated in your message. Your message indicates that TWAIN is a necessary technology, but the intro page indicates that TWAIN is not necessary, and that SANE is the replacement.
> 
> And from the intro page, I thought that a scanner manufacturer that bundles 3rd-party TWAIN-compliant front-ends (OCR packages, Photoshop-like packages, etc.), but who wanted to move to supporting SANE could make the SANE backend and keep their Win32 TWAIN front-end for these 3rd-party software apps. Perhaps I misunderstood something there too.
> 
> Regarding manu. support, I wasn't thinking of formal contracts or such with each manufacturer. In the beginning, just publicly crediting companies that have contributed to various backends (even if it's only one scanner). But make that information easily available on the web-site, not burried in source code.
> 
> Until I understand how the expected roles of TWAIN and SANE (as architected in SANE, its roadmap, etc.) I cannot argue my points about simply making the web-site contain more information about the importance, benefits, momentum, and support of the SANE project. If you could take a moment, I'd appreciate it. There are many components in talking to a scanner, and I don't see how they all fit together.
> 1. driver (OS and scanner chipset dependent), 
> 2. connection protocol handler (USB, SCSI, TCP/IP, Bluetooth?)
> 3. TWAIN?
> 4. SANE?
> 5. Applications
> 
> If you have a moment to draw out the ideal setup, I'd appreciate it.
> Thanks,
> Dave Paules
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Major A [mailto:andras@users.sourceforge.net]
> > Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 12:16 AM
> > To: David N. Paules
> > Cc: SANE devel
> > Subject: Re: [sane-devel] discussion: Future of SANE-project
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > But, if the ultimate goal of SANE is to supplant TWAIN as the
> > > standard for accessing image devices, shouldn't more effort be put
> > 
> > I don't think it is. TWAIN and SANE act on completely different
> > levels. I suppose that once a sufficiently large number of
> > manufacturers support SANE with their code (binary or open-source),
> > they will begin to see that there's no point in wasting time and money
> > writing a separate Windows/MacOS driver, they will just use SANE on
> > these platforms too, with the cross-platform SANE backend they had to
> > write anyway (possibly with their own frontend optimized for their
> > scanners). TWAIN is still going to be the interface between the
> > frontend and the application the image is to be imported to.
> > 
> > > Perhaps working examples demonstrating how scanner makers can
> > > leverage their investment in TWAIN support while migrating to SANE
> > > might be useful for getting scanner makers to take notice of
> > > SANE. If an upgrade path was readily shown, techno-geeks at the
> > > manufacturer might prefer and sell the SANE idea to managers within
> > > the company.
> > 
> > I don't think we can do a lot at the moment. There's no update path
> > from TWAIN to SANE that I can see, and you can't tell who the
> > techno-geeks in a company are without having had prior contact with
> > them. I think that more and more developers of proprietary software
> > realize that open-source can save them money and effort and create
> > superior products (they already see that the first time they pop that
> > Knoppix CD into their Windows computer), so it's only a matter of time
> > before they start lobbying within the company.
> > 
> > > Formal propoganda of industry heavyweight support (a consortium of
> > > scanner makers and front-end application development houses) on the
> > > web-site might make other makers feel the need to join in.
> > 
> > That sounds a bit like Darl McBride to me. I don't think any of us
> > hobbyist SANE developers have the financial and legal backing needed
> > to claim any heavyweight industry support.
> > 
> > > Without this kind of direction, I simply see SANE as being a
> > > hobbyist-level effort which is why I questioned the future of
> > > it. Thanks for listening and answering my questions.
> > 
> > That's how all open-source projects start out, just like Linux, GIMP,
> > etc. Look at what's become of them, I'm quite confident that SANE will
> > have a similar future.
> > 
> >   Andras
> 
> --
> sane-devel mailing list: sane-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/sane-devel
> Unsubscribe: Send mail with subject "unsubscribe your_password"
>              to sane-devel-request@lists.alioth.debian.org
> 

-- 
"so don't tell us it can't be done, putting down what you don't know.
money isn't our god, integrity will free our souls" - Max Cavalera