[sane-devel] infrared, SANE_FRAME_RGBA

[Alessandro Zummo]

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:48:38 +0100
Gerhard Jaeger <gerhard at gjaeger.de> wrote:

> > 
> >   I would like to add the format SANE_FRAME_RGBA and have the infrared
> >  channel passed back as the alpha channel. I would then patch
> >  scanimage to save this channel to a tiff file.

> sorry for the noise, but AFAIR, we had this discussion already here
> about extending the currently available image data formats. The
> conclusion was, that with SANE 1.0 we should not do that - SANE 2.0
> will be the solution ;) - Henning???
> 
> I see that your changes won't probably break anything, but I think
> it is again time for the discussion - Allow extending SANE 1.0
> or not - SANE 2.0 is far from being ever started :(

 I would really appreciate a sane 2, but we have a problem:

 who will write it? who will port the drivers?

 some drivers are old. original authors are not available.
 original testers are neither and they might
 no more have the equipment. 

 I've got 0 (zero) answers to my "call for beta testers" for
 the epson2 driver.

 the code must be completely reviewed and each driver
 has some code/style standard of its own to handle the things.. 

 a complete rewrite could take no less than 1 year if appropriate development
 forces (and equipment) are available, which it doesn't seem the case.
 (there are open bugs in the bug tracking which are more than
 3 years old).

 And that is when development is started, but first we should agree
 on the sane2 specs, which could take months.
 
 So we either find a way to pay 2/3 developers full time or
 I guess we should stick to sane 1 :-D

 So, my opinion is to stick to sane 1, document what we have
 at the deepest level (i'm, for one, adding comments to 
 epson2 in order to explain what's done).

 we can reorganize the drivers, split the code and
 add some features (like new frame formats, which
 are a quite easy thing and would not break anything)

 maybe add a wiki and a new friendlier bug tracking
 system (trac has both).

 some things that have been agreed on sane2 can easily
 be implemented in sane1 with no/minor compatibility
 issues.
 
 minor tweaks, like agreeing on common names
 for scan sources are implementable (ADF vs Automatic Document Feeder).

 so, while having sane2 is a good thing, IMHO we are not at a
 point where this can be done. improving sane1 is still doable though
 and would be helpful in the path to sane2.

 my suggestions, thus, are:

 - wiki
 - trac
 - comments
 - dropping support for anything that is not C99
 - code reorganization (no more 6K lines in a single file!)
 - standard debug levels for drivers (no more SANE_DEBUG_DRIVERNAME)
 - conformance
 
 and call that sane 1.5 :)

  just my two cents...

-- 

 Best regards,

 Alessandro Zummo,
  Tower Technologies - Turin, Italy

  http://www.towertech.it