[sane-devel] Canon Scanner P-208 II

[Oliver Jan Krylow]

My apologies, I overlooked the language in my haste.

Am I understanding this correctly, the whole driver is under some kind of proprietary license, except for some GPL'd glue code between SANE and some magic binary blob?

I don't know if this violates GPL but I have a strong urge to return the product and get my money back... :)

On September 24, 2016 9:41:22 AM GMT+02:00, Thomas Geier <ziggystar at gmx.de> wrote:
>But they link their code against SANE, and SANE is GPL licensed. So 
>doesn't this enforce their code to be GPL licensed, independent of what
>
>they say?
>
>
>On 24.09.2016 09:23, Olaf Meeuwissen wrote:
>> Hi Oliver,
>>
>> Oliver Jan Krylow writes:
>>
>>>
>http://www.canon.de/support/consumer_products/products/scanners/others/imageformula_p-208ii.aspx?type=drivers&language=&os=#disclaimer
>> While I do understand a fair bit of German, I wouldn't want to agree
>to
>> any license agreement written in it ;-)
>>
>> Here's a link that gives an English version for the 32-bit Linux
>> driver.  There is no 64-bit driver.
>>
>>   
>http://www.canon.co.uk/support/consumer_products/products/scanners/others/imageformula_p-208ii.aspx?type=drivers&language=EN&os=Linux%20%2832-bit%29
>>
>> Everyone should read the whole license themselves, but it has:
>>
>>    You are not permitted to: (1) [...] convey, transfer, copy,
>modify,
>>    adapt, merge, translate, convert to another programming language,
>>    reverse-engineer, decompile, modify, alter, disassemble or create
>>    derivative works based on the whole or any part of the Software
>[...];
>>    (2) reproduce or deal in the Software or any part thereof, or
>allow
>>    any third party to reproduce or deal in the Software or any part
>>    thereof, in any way, except as expressly permitted by this
>Agreement
>>    [...].
>>
>> That looks extremely bleak.  But, near the end, it also says:
>>
>>    Other license terms: When you install the software you may be
>required
>>    to accept another end user license agreement which corresponds to
>the
>>    specific software you are installing. [...] In the event of any
>>    contradiction or inconsistency between the terms of such end user
>>    license agreement and these license terms, in respect of the
>software
>>    you are installing, the terms of such end user license agreement
>shall
>>    prevail.
>>
>> So I decided to have a look.  The source tarball and debian package
>in
>> the zip archive (didn't look at the rpm but assume it to be the same)
>> contain a LICENSE-p208II-1.00E.txt file that says, amongst a pile of
>> other things you really should read yourself:
>>
>>    1.GRANT OF LICENSE
>>    [...] You may modify the Software only for your own use and
>reverse
>>    engineer the same for debugging such modifications.  [...]
>>
>>    2.RESTRICTIONS
>>    Except as expressly granted or permitted herein, you shall not
>use,
>>    assign, sublicense, sell, rent, lease, loan, convey or transfer to
>any
>>    third party the Software.
>>
>>    [...]
>>    
>>    IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR THE USE OF FREE SOFTWARE COMPONENTS BEING
>>    LICENSED UNDER GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
>>
>>    This product "Canon ImageFOMULA Scanner Driver for Linux vx.xx"
>>    ("Product") of Canon Electronics Inc. ("Canon") contains the free
>>    software components as listed in Schedule 2 of Exhibit attached
>>    hereto, and which are licensed under GNU General Public License
>>    version 2 published by the Free Software Foundation ("GPL").
>>
>>    Such free software components are free software; you can
>redistribute
>>    them and/or modify them under the terms of GPL.
>>
>>    [...]
>>
>>    Schedule 2
>>
>>    canondr_com_usb.1.1.0
>>    libsane-canondr.so.1.0.0
>>    canondr.conf
>>
>> OK, so those parts are GPL.  Let's have a look then.
>>
>> I only took a quick look but libsane-canondr.so.1.0.0 basically just
>> gets the list of supported options from a configuration file and uses
>> SANE's network protocol to "outsource" all of to a stripped binary by
>> the name of canondr_backendp208II.
>>
>> This binary is execl()d from libsane-canondr.so.1.0.0, just as the
>> canondr_com_usb.1.1.0 USB communication utility. 
>canondr_backendp208II
>> is handed file descriptors that enable it to use
>canondr_com_usb.1.1.0.
>>
>> Source code for libsane-canondr.so.1.0.0 as canondr_com_usb.1.1.0
>does
>> not contain anything that might be of interest.
>>
>> Nothing useful for the SANE project but hope this helps anyway,
>
>
>-- 
>sane-devel mailing list: sane-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org
>http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sane-devel
>Unsubscribe: Send mail with subject "unsubscribe your_password"
>             to sane-devel-request at lists.alioth.debian.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/attachments/20160924/ce1653db/attachment.html>