[sane-devel] Intended change of config file handling

[Henning Meier-Geinitz]

Hi everybody,

I intend to change the handling of configuration files. The idea is
that the original files (currently e.g. epson.conf) are renamed to
.conf.in (e.g. epson.conf.in). When running "make", the real .conf
files are generated from the .conf.in files. When running "make
install", the .conf files are installed as before.

The idea behind this change is that .conf.in files can be preprocessed
the same way as already done for the manual pages (e.g. sane-epson.man
-> sane-epson.5). This allows us to use configure variables like
@DATADIR@ in the config files. The original idea was to use the
correct firmware directory for scanners which need a firmware in the
config file automatically. At the moment, some backends need user
changes in the config files becasue the config files don't know where
the firmware directories are (e.g. in /usr/local/share/sane/... or
/usr/share/sane/...). 

See also bug report #302590:
https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=302590&group_id=30186&atid=410366

As this is a change that involves renaming all config files (to
config.in) I want to give everyone the opportunity to cry out loudly
if he thinks that this is not a good idea.

I addition to renaming the config files and changing
backend/Makefile.in appropriately, there are no other changes
necessary. Only if the new features are used in the config files, the
config files themselves must be changed.

Bye,
  Henning