[sane-devel] Canon Scanner P-208 II

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Oliver,

Oliver Jan Krylow writes:

> 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?

That and the fact that their backend start two child processes (one of
which is the "magic" binary blob) with which it communicates.

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

I have currently no reason to believe it does.  If you are concerned
about the need to use a non-free, 32-bit BLOB to use your scanner, then
returning it is one of your options.  By the looks of it, it won't make
a decent doorstop ;-)  A paperweight?  Maybe.

You might add letting Canon know if you return it and tell them why.

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