[sane-devel] Sane API

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Hi Alexander,

Alexander Pevzner writes:

> Hi Ralph,
>
> On 10/12/20 4:47 AM, Ralph Little wrote:
>> What is the status of the SANE API specification.
>> I know that there is another API version in the works but I do not know
>> who, if anyone, is working on it.
>> I would be interested to participate.
> Me too.
>
> And one of the most interesting questions, how the process of
> migration to the new updated API could be organized.
>
> Currently all drivers implement the whole SANE API. There are about
> one hundred drivers, and I believe, at least half of them are
> unmaintained (though I think, it's very optimistic estimation).

It's more like 80% unmaintained :-/
To be precise, 78 out of 93, based on the :version keyword in
doc/descriptions/*.desc excluding the template.

> Either all changes in the API must be backward compatible, or some
> translation layer is required (something, that implements SANE 2.0 on
> a top of SANE 1.x). or somebody should update all existent drivers,
> which is very unlikely to happen.

Following semantic versioning, we are at liberty to (completely) break
the API's backward compatibility although I realize that the draft has
different ideas about that.  Seeing how many years have passed since it
was drafted, I guess a more radical approach _might_ be in order.

If someone cares enough to write a compatibility layer, that's fine but
it's not anywhere on *my* priority list.

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