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

[m. allan noah]

On 6/8/08, David Lochrin <dlochrin at d2.net.au> wrote:
> On Sunday 08 June 2008 22:06, m. allan noah wrote:
>  >>    In relation to my previous post, if it's possible to accomodate
>  >> manufacturers' sensitivities regarding proprietary code within the
>  >> constraints of the GPL and overall SANE architecture (especially a major
>  >> player such as Canon) the status of SANE as a de-facto standard would be
>  >> greatly helped.
>  >
>  > ... at the expense of helping users to give away their essential
>  > freedoms that made their otherwise free system possible in the first
>  > place?
>
>
>    The "system" consists of both hardware and software.  Manufacturers can't be forced to accept 100% open software if they feel it's not in their own interests, and rigid enforcement of the ideal at the cost of supporting significantly fewer recently released scanners would be an empty victory.

Your argument is based on a very loose interpretation of 'support',
because you probably use Linux on x86. Fortunately, SANE is NOT just
'scanner drivers for Linux'. we cover most (if not all) unix-like
OS's. Encouraging scanner vendors to think only about Linux drivers at
the expense of our other platforms is a far more hollow victory than
yours.

> Please note, I'm not suggesting that the GPL or SANE architecture be compromised.

forget architecture, i am talking about freedom. I routinely run sane
on platforms other than Linux/x86, a freedom that the GPL gives me,
and proprietary software takes away. If i want to be locked in, i will
go back to windows!

>    To put it another way, I think a ~limited~ software design compromise which encourages adoption of SANE would be a good thing, ~if~ that's possible.  Some posts appear to indicate it might be.

There certainly is a possibility for vendors like Canon who have IP
restrictions to build a multi-part SANE backend, provided that it uses
a simple multi-process model. It wont be truely SANE compatible unless
they provide the closed parts compiled for every platform SANE
supports, however.

>    However I'm just a SANE user, and haven't contributed to its development.

As was I at first, but access to the source code made it possible for
me to correct a few bugs,  add a few features, and eventually support
lots of new scanners. This is a freedom i want all users to have.

allan
-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"