[sane-devel] Please give me some help to solve the license issues in using sane

[Wang Mengqiang]

Hello, everyone,

My name is Wang mengqiang, I am expecting to get your help on development very much.

I am investigating to develop a commerce driver on linux.  I have studied the sane project for some time. And, we are planning to develop the driver on sane. But, I have some doubts on license of sane so, I'd like to get the answer from sane directly.  

1) In the development, we plan to use several special modules  which do not contain any open source code from sane or other party, because they contain some tecnology that we do not want to open. So, that is, our backend is composed of two parts, one part is open source code which we refer to the source code from sane, and another part is one that should not be open. Of course, the first part(open source part) will call the functions in the second part(closed source part). After compiling and linking them together, we get the backend. My questions is whether we can keep the second part closed in this way,  whether this way comform to the license of sane(GPL)?  Please refer to the attached image for the architecture. 


2) If we can use above method to develop our commerce driver, is there any limitation on the link, for example, static link during the compile, or dynamic link when the backend is running? 

Additionaly, I found one sentence like, in http://www.sane-project.org/backend-writing.txt
--------------------------------Start----------------------------------------
       PROGRAMMING
       -----------

       * A backend library is always only one file (libsane-backendname.so). Please do
          not use multiple libraries e.g. for lower and higher level code.


--------------------------------end-----------------------------------------

does it mean that the backend MUST be generated by static link in compiling, it cannot dynamic link other library(dll), right?


3)  Maybe, in some case, we will include some header files of sane in a file, for example, to include file  '/include/sane/sanei_backend.h'. Then, should we open our source only because of this including?


 Best Regards,

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/  
_/    Mengqiang Wang

_/    System Development Dept 5.

_/    System Planning & Development Div.     
_/    Canon Information Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.  
_/    12A Floor, Yingu Building
_/    No. 9 Beishuanxi Rd.
_/    Haidian District, Beijing 100080
_/    China
_/    Phone: +86-10-6280-0210 ext:702
_/    Direct Line: +86-10-6280-0689
_/    Fax:   +86-10-6280-0695
_/    e-mail: wangmengqiang at canon-ib.com.cn

_/    http://www.canon-ib.com.cn
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