Linux Might See Open-Source Support For Plustek Scanners

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Might See Open-Source Support For Plustek Scanners

After writing a few days ago about Fujitsu SP scanners getting Linux support but being only provided by binary blobs, a Phoronix reader pointed out that the Plustek scanner manufacturer is looking at providing open-source Linux driver support...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Plustek-Possible-OSS-Linux

[starshipeleven]

Wow, Plustek makes high-end stuff, their main beef is company-grade hardware, and they say they have many customers on different linux distros asking for drivers.
It does sound very weird, let's see if that engineer answers the requests of the SANE guy

Jenson- The SANE project certainly could accept your code for 
 inclusion into our repository, if a few conditions are met. Namely:  1. The code must be completely open and suitable for use with our license. No binary or precompiled code, other than possible firmware uploads. 2. The code must use our sanei_* libraries for things like usb or threading. It should not directly use libusb or any kernel modules, etc. 3. The code should be free from obvious security holes and bad programming practices like using gets() or mktemp(). 4. One or more members of your team need to join the SANE project so you can see user support requests on this mailing list and our bug tracker. 5. The code must build on other platforms that SANE supports, like the various BSD Unixes. Generally, this just requires not calling anything Linux specific.  Additionally, we prefer that all backends use our debugging library, so that an environment variable like SANE_DEBUG_PLUSTEK=10 could be used to enable user visible information from the backend.  If you and your management can accept those terms, the SANE project would be glad to have your help. Additionally, your users would benefit from having your drivers installed out of the box with their distro of choice.  Thanks for contacting us.  allan

[starshipeleven]

and of course vBullshittin screws up formatting even if it is inside CODE brackets.

Jenson- The SANE project certainly could accept your code for
inclusion into our repository, if a few conditions are met. Namely:

1. The code must be completely open and suitable for use with our
license. No binary or precompiled code, other than possible firmware
uploads.
2. The code must use our sanei_* libraries for things like usb or
threading. It should not directly use libusb or any kernel modules,
etc.
3. The code should be free from obvious security holes and bad
programming practices like using gets() or mktemp().
4. One or more members of your team need to join the SANE project so
you can see user support requests on this mailing list and our bug
tracker.
5. The code must build on other platforms that SANE supports, like the
various BSD Unixes. Generally, this just requires not calling anything
Linux specific.

Additionally, we prefer that all backends use our debugging library,
so that an environment variable like SANE_DEBUG_PLUSTEK=10 could be
used to enable user visible information from the backend.

If you and your management can accept those terms, the SANE project
would be glad to have your help. Additionally, your users would
benefit from having your drivers installed out of the box with their
distro of choice.

Thanks for contacting us.

allan

[microcode]

Man, I have some film to scan, it'd be a very easy decision to go with Plustek if they had drivers in SANE.

[timofonic]

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2016-November/034872.html][/url]
Dear Team, We will provide all source code to meet your point 1. About 2,3,5, we need to review our source code first. I hope this suggestion can be work. About4, I think we can put a member to watch the bug, but not full time. Best Regards,Jenson 精益求精,超越卓越. A to A+

http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/sane-devel/2016-November/034872.html

It seems the thread wasn't reviewed closely, as the taiwanese developer already replied. It really surprises me their very obvious English mistakes, but his "chinglish" is better than average.

It's really disappointing a company wants to support Open Source drivers, yet isn't going to put ONE DAMN full time developer. I'm sure they have a half even for MacOS only.

Why is this still happening? Open Source is a miracle, it works with this really pathetic support from companies...

[flockmock]

I don't understand why scanners are regarded as problematic under Linux. Just scan something and let the result being sent as email attachement or some ftp upload. Most modern scanner support that. Whats the problem?

[M@yeulC]

and of course vBullshittin screws up formatting even if it is inside CODE brackets.

I wish I had seen your second post earlier, would have spared me reading the thing with the wrong formatting


Pretty interesting. I didn't know the company, it looks like they have some pretty good products... Why not, if they have some decent open source drivers. That's the way to go!

[M@yeulC]

I don't understand why scanners are regarded as problematic under Linux. Just scan something and let the result being sent as email attachement or some ftp upload. Most modern scanner support that. Whats the problem?

Drivers. To do that, you need to be able to communicate with the scanner first, and you need a driver.
And, open source drivers are better. I can't even think of a single advantage a proprietary driver might have over an open source one. (Ok, maybe I could find one, if the company is lazy, doesn't want to show its crap, or other, but not in a general, good case).

[flockmock]

Drivers. To do that, you need to be able to communicate with the scanner first, and you need a driver.

You dont need specific linux drivers if the scanner is just sending the results per ftp or mail.

[M@yeulC]

You dont need specific linux drivers if the scanner is just sending the results per ftp or mail.

I get what you mean, now. Unfortunately, It doesn't seem to me that it is the norm as of now (as I only regularly see big printers in corporate environments being able to do so). Not sure if it is a viable replacement for every use case, though. Plus, most of their scanners don't seem to have this functionality.