[sane-devel] Brother Scanner Entry 55-libsane.rules (openSUSE 11.1)

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello Hartmut,

many thanks to make us aware of such nonsense
public "solutions"-"instruction"s by a manufacturer.

This helps users a lot to decide which manufacturer they
may like to prefer when they buy a scanner to get reasonable
support for Linux.


On Jul 21 18:04 Hartmut Hain wrote (shortened):
> openSUSE 11.1
>    1. Open "/etc/udev/rules.d/55-libsane.rules"
>    2. Add 2 lines for Brother products.
>
>    The lines to be added---------------------------------
>
>    #Brother
>    ATTR{idVendor}=="04f9", MODE="0666", GROUP="scanner",
> ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

This is two times nonsense.
1.
Mode 0666 for all Brother products is the usual stupid
Windows-like idea of Windows-minded manufacturers how to make
their devices work like in the Windows world by simply disabling
any kind of security at all for all their devices (i.e. also
for non-scanners devices like USB flash drives).
The /etc/udev/rules.d/55-libsane.rules is full of entries
which are correct but is seems they never understood
why the other entries therein are made as they are.
2.
There is no group "scanner" at all in openSUSE so that
it is nonsense to assign this group to a device node file.


>    3. Restart the OS.
> (from http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/instruction_scn1c.html)

If there would have been a clear warning that this
disables any kind of security for all their devices
so that it is only o.k. for a computer in a trusted environment
with sufficient remote access protection from the Internet
it would have been acceptable but it only reads
"Scanner Setting for normal user" and the linking page
http://solutions.brother.com/linux/en_us/instruction_scn1.html
even reads
"Setting for normal users (Required for USB Connection)"
which implies that disabling any kind of security
is "Required for USB Connection" - what a nonsense!


I really do not understand at all why there are close-minded
manufacturers who insist to do everything on their own
based on their own internal Windows-like assumptions
and never ever get the great new idea to simply ask
the SANE developers and/or the well known persons at the
Linux distributors who work regading "scanners".

In contrast there are well known manufacturers like Epson/Avasys
and HP who are in contact with the SANE developers and with
the persons at the Linux distributors and of course their
scanner driver software is very much better than the usual crap
from the other manufacturers.


FYI: For another example for even more evil crap
from another manufacturer see
http://www.google.de/search?q=samsung+driver+setuid+root


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
-- 
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany
AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex