[sane-devel] Providing the version of SANE used in VueScan

[m. allan noah]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 8:01 AM, abel deuring <adeuring at gmx.net> wrote:
> On 27.01.2009 07:30, Ed Hamrick wrote:
>> Hi Olaf,
>>
>> The source you referred to is attached.  I'm happy
>> to assist people with getting copies of the source
>> code to the trivial parts of SANE that I used in
>> VueScan.  And yes, I'm obviously capable of spending
>> an hour or two stripping the sanei_scsi module
>> out of VueScan - after all, VueScan does support many
>> things (like infrared cleaning) on Epson scanners that
>> you're incapable of supporting :)
>
> Actually, I'd appreciate if you would remove sanei_scsi from Vuescan. I
> remember a bug report from a Vuescan user a few years ago who stumbled
> over a sanei_scsi bug. I could fix this bug quickly -- but the poor user
> was out of luck: you wrote that you hadn't had enough time to link the
> fixed sanei_scsi version into a new Vuescan release...
>
> That was a reason why I always considered to start a discussion if Sane
> shouldn't switch to the LGPL: It would allow Vuescan users to link a
> fixed Sane library into Vuscan and other proprietary programs for
> themselves.
>
>>
>> This is also an "official request" to René Rebe to
>> provide the source code to avision.c that he's included
>> in ExactScan 2.
>
> Yeah -- the funny thing with this request is that it was Rene who wrote
> the avision backend. So your request may be formally valid, but,
> frankly, it looks a bit weird.

No, it is not weird at all. The GPL is not to punish Rene, it is to
give rights to Ed (and everyone else). If he has received a legitimate
copy of ExactScan, he is entitled to the SANE portions. Since
ExactScan comes as a free trial, everyone is a legitimate user. There
seems to be no other way to get this code than asking Rene directly.

allan

ps- these license issues would be clarified by switching to the LGPL,
but because the copyright holder of SANE is each individual author,
you would have to get all of their permission. An impossible task,
IMHO.
-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"