HAL and scanners

[Joe Shaw]

abel deuring wrote:
> My point is this: if you consider HAL as a sort of "hardware
> database", it might make sense to add some hints about the
> compatibility between a device and APIs that are installed on a
> system. While it is nice for me as a Sane developer to know that
> Sane is more or less the standard for scanning under Linux/Unix, I
> don't want to enforce this near-monopoly by setting "scanner
> supported" equivalent to "scanner supported by Sane".

I agree entirely.  There is no such thing as being generically 
supported.  It's either supported by some software on the system or it 
isn't.  What exactly that is should be a detail inconsequential to the 
user.  Any SANE-specific information, including whether or not it's 
supported by SANE, should be in a scanner.sane namespace.

Joe