[sane-devel] Recommendations for color, network scanner with ADF and no non-free driver needed?

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a scanner that meets the 
following criteria:

- color scanning is required,
- ADF (automatic document feeder),
- flatbed scanner for large/fragile documents that should not go through 
the ADF,
- duplex ADF scanning,
- no non-free driver is needed for full scanner and ADF support,
- device should not be an all-in-one printer/fax/scanner; only a scanner 
is desired.

I'm considering the following:

- Epson GT-2500 Plus

I have experience with this scanner and it works well, but I have no 
idea if it works without the non-free software used to scan from the 
flatbed and the document feeder.

Does anyone have one of these (even if yours is an Epson GT-2500 to 
which you later added the Epson network card)?  If so, any problems with 
SANE's network scan support?

- Epson GT-30000

I have worked with the Epson 10000XL and glancing at screenshots this 
looks like a networked, document feeder variant of the 10000XL.  The 
tabloid size scanbed is larger than I need and this scanner costs 
thousands more than I'd like to spend, hence I'd prefer to know someone 
else has successfully used this with SANE and no non-free software 
before I buy one.

I'm also currently reading SANE-devel mailing list archives and h-node 
website (http://www.h-node.com/) and mailing list archives for help.

I'm not opposed to other brands of scanner, nor am I particularly in 
favor of Epson scanners.  I just happened to work for a place where they 
favored Epson scanners so I have some experience with a few of the Epson 
scanner models.

I don't want the scanner to require use of non-free software because I 
intend to use the scanner for a long time across multiple OSes (binary 
drivers tie one to a particular architecture and OS), and because I want 
to have the option to know what is going on with the scanner should I 
desire to learn about this later on.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.