[sane-devel] xsane requires deprecated /proc/scsi support

[KE6FIS at arrl.net]

I tried searching the archives but can't seem to find this issue raised
anywhere. My Epson 2450 scanner used to work fine with xsane via the
IEEE1394 interface on my Gentoo box. I needed to scan the other day,
however, and it had stopped functioning. After much poking around I
finally determined that the option 

Device Drivers-->SCSI Device Support-->legacy /proc/scsi support

had been turned off during some earlier kernel upgrade. (I'm not sure
whether 'make oldconfig' did it or if it was ham-handedness on my part.)
Anyway, here is one observation and one question:

Observation: the symptom was that sane-find-scanner saw the scanner, but
scanimage -L did not. Possible issue -- check the legacy /proc/scsi
support in the kernel. (  Now it's in the archives :-)  )

Question: the linux kernel developers are moving device support to the
/sys filesystem. Are there any plans in the works for the sane tools and
backends to start using /sys and not /proc, at least for linux? 
(I glanced through the source but didn't see anything that looked 
like /sys support.) It wouldn't surprise me if some future kernel
upgrade 'disappeared' /proc/scsi altogether because the devs deprecated
it, and their response in these cases is always "you had plenty of time 
to fix the apps". Could that happen to sane?

-- 
                               Bob Johnson