[sane-devel] The future of the SANE-Standard

[Alessandro Zummo]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:30:12 +0100
Oliver Rauch <Oliver.Rauch at Rauch-Domain.DE> wrote:


> What is discussed in the moment is a "slow transformation from SANE1 to
> SANE2" (I don't remeber the exact words). And we do not discuss only
> some new frame types. It took about 30 minutes after this suggestion to
> add several other things that are not compatible to SANE1.

 Those things are proposals and if implemented they will be implemented
 in a way so that the current frontends do not have to be altered. 
 
> And what all the people forget is that is may be a simple step to change
> a backend to send a new frame or image type to the frontend.
> For the frontends we get a lot of work to handle this. But here are one
> or two frontend authors that try to discuss with several backend
> authors.

 Let me stress it again. You will not have to change your frontend.
 The current backends - all of them - will send the same data that
 is sent right now. 
 
> We will get a lot of incompatibilites when we add several new frame
> types. From the backend author's view this is not much work, the backend
> simply sends the data the scanner produces. But the frontend authors
> have to handle this.

 The frontend does not have to handle this unless it wants. No new format
 will be exposed unless requested.

> Now some people will say that we do not need all frontends to handle all
> frame types. But what is the adavantage of it when the frontends can not
> handle it. It only makes sense to add e.g.  a TIFFg3FAX or JPEG frame
> type when all frontends can handle this. But when we make this step,
> then we should make the complet step to SANE2.

 The advantage of it that the people that requires them will be able
 to use them. You can't wait that all frontends are up-to-date to add
 features.


-- 

 Best regards,

 Alessandro Zummo,
  Tower Technologies - Torino, Italy

  http://www.towertech.it