[sane-devel] Preparing for a sane-backends release

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Johannes,

Johannes Meixner writes:

> 1)
> Right now I filed
> https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=30186&atid=410366
> with my fix-buffer-overflow.patch attached
> that fixes a too small array in backend/niash.c

This has been assigned.
Stef, can you take a look?

> 2)
> My re-add-SANE_CAP_ALWAYS_SETTABLE.patch re-adds SANE_CAP_ALWAYS_SETTABLE
> to sane.h which was erroneously removed in sane-backends-1.0.20 so that
> sane-frontends and xsane can no longer build, see
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=527675

This has been discussed on the list already and will not be addressed
for 1.0.25.

> 3)
> My fix-mustek_pp_ccd300.c.patch fixes undefined 'foo = ++foo modulo bar'
> operations in mustek_pp_ccd300.c see
> https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498435
> and 
> https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=311857&group_id=30186&atid=410366
> where the upstream maintainer did not understand what is wrong and
> closed it  as "Wont Fix" so that we must keep this patch forever
> to make at least the code somehow valid for the compiler.
> fix-mustek_pp_ccd300.c.patch is attached to the above
> alioth.debian.org bug tracker issue.
> Of course because the result of 'foo = ++foo' is undefined
> I cannot know if my patch implements what is actually intended.
> My patch implements an arbitrary result that only makes the
> compiler happy.

I have reopened this bug.

> 4)
> My install-umax_pp-tool.patch installs tools/umax_pp as /usr/bin/umax_pp
> which is built but not installed but it is needed to recover from
> a failed scan with scanners which use the umax_pp backend, see
> http://bugs.debian.org/496833
>
> install-umax_pp-tool.patch
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> --- tools/Makefile.am.orig      2009-02-20 17:51:09.000000000 +0100
> +++ tools/Makefile.am   2009-06-05 15:08:45.000000000 +0200
> @@ -7,8 +7,8 @@
>   AM_CPPFLAGS = -I. -I$(srcdir) -I$(top_builddir)/include \
>    -I$(top_srcdir)/include
>
> -bin_PROGRAMS = sane-find-scanner gamma4scanimage
> -noinst_PROGRAMS = sane-desc umax_pp
> +bin_PROGRAMS = sane-find-scanner gamma4scanimage umax_pp
> +noinst_PROGRAMS = sane-desc
>
>   if CROSS_COMPILING
>   HOTPLUG =
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The install-umax_pp-tool.patch still applies for current
> sane-backends-git20150804.tar.gz so that I assume
> tools/umax_pp is still not installed by default.

Agreed that umax_pp should be installed, but preferably only if the
corresponding backend gets built as well.  I've pushed a pu branch
for this[0].

 [0] https://gitlab.com/sane-project/backends/commits/pu/install-umax-pp-tools

> In general regarding parallel port scanner drivers:
>
> The above issues 3) and 4) are about parallel port scanner drivers.
>
> I wonder if support for parallel port scanners is still needed?

Me wonders too.  I haven't seen one this century.  I even wonder if SCSI
scanners still need to be supported.

Of course, my view has been mostly limited to Epson devices so may not
be particularly representative.

> I assume that basically nobody tests parallel port scanners.
> Probably also basically nobody usues parallel port scanners.
>
> In this case parallel port scanner drivers should be dropped
> because in practice they are no longer maintained.

You could build your SANE library packages without the backends for
parallel scanners and see how many bug reports you get.  The list of
backends that ships with SUSE is SUSE's to decide after all.

# I realize it may be easier to get the SANE project to drop parallel
# scanner support than to convince the SUSE "powers that be" that it's
# okay to do so ;-)

> As a first step parallel port scanner drivers could be
> no longer built by default e.g. via something like
>    configure --without-parport
> by default.

Having such an option would make the above a lot easier.  I didn't find
an open feature request[1] for this.  Care to submit one?

 [1] https://alioth.debian.org/tracker/index.php?group_id=30186&atid=410369

Hope this helps,
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen, LPIC-2            FSF Associate Member since 2004-01-27
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