Erik-- As a lawyer, I am unsure there is an issue here with integrating the Visioneer back-end, since if it indeed has been released to the public with open ownership (i.e. no strict license rights and thus if anything a broad license akin to ownership), then you could make some modifications to it and as long as there is authorship acknowledgement, your modified back-end can be included with the GPL.
IN essence the underlying code is public w/ a non-GPL license, but the code + changes would be under GPL. If someone wants non-GPL code at that point, they would have to grab the originally released Visioneer code. The code w/ your modifications would have to be honored under the GPL. Does this make sense? Sunil -----Original Message----- From: sane-devel-ad...@mostang.com [mailto:sane-devel-ad...@mostang.com] On Behalf Of Erik Strack Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 6:03 PM To: sane-de...@mostang.com Subject: [sane-devel] New Backend newbie question Hello to all, What does it normally take to get a sane backend integrated into the distribution? I'd like to get the Viceo backend integrated in, written by Steven Ellis and K W Lee. This backend is based on code graciously released by Visioneer -- obviously not under NDA because it's freely available. But it's my understanding that this poses a critical problem in getting the Viceo backend integrated into Sane? (Since the Windows-originating code is not released under GNU GPL? But it was released to the public, just maybe not with a GNU-style license...) This is quite frustrating for me, as I use my scanner a lot and mostly use Linux now... Support is quite good, including front-panel buttons. I'd like to see support in the distros like Red Hat and Mandrake some day so I don't have to keep hacking and re-compiling forever... And I would think it's a good thing if the manufacturer releases their code and it can be used under Linux. That saves potentially years of time of writing, debugging, and optimizing the code to support the various chipsets, interfaces, and configurations... Hmm The driver in question, Viceo, now supports several pieces of hardware, including the Visioneer 8600, 7600, and a few other models too I think. Thanks for the time to answer any of my questions. Sincerely, Erik (happy yet frustrated visioneer user) _______________________________________________ Sane-devel mailing list sane-de...@www.mostang.com http://www.mostang.com/mailman/listinfo/sane-devel
