Re: brother printer/scanners
On Mon 02 Jan 2017 at 22:11:26 -0500, Jape Person wrote:
> On 01/02/2017 06:50 PM, Brian wrote:
> >
> >Could be. The license for printer and scanner drivers says you can
> >modify, alter, translate, reproduce and distribute their software.
> >Sounds good. Doesn't Debian say that too?
>
> Yeah, I think I saw that scrolling by, too. The problem I had was trying to
> figure out if they really were referring to every piece of the software, or
> just to little bits. There were a lot of downloads with accompanying EULAs
> in the text presented by the scripted install.
I imagine it's the binary-only libraries (or executables) used for
printing and scanning. Other programs are either shell scripts or
readable configuration files. Allowing modification of these binaries
is pretty useless without the source code, however. The license prior
to the present one didn't even allow this (except for debugging
purposes) or distribution of an altered binary.
> I stopped reading when I got to the Yoyodyne, Inc. bit. I have always glazed
> over when reading legalese, suspecting that it is written by people who like
> to confuse and make fun of those of us with no training in the finer points
> of law. When I hit Yoyodyne (reference Buckaroo Bonzai) I knew for certain
> that *someone* was being kidded. Since I was focused on testing, I let the
> joke slide for another time.
Most people probably don't even get as far as you did. A Debian packager
would have to be more conscientious and careful. Which reminds me: the
so-called .deb packages aren't; they are converted rpms. Talk about
doing a job well!
> >The license also says there is no warranty to the software. They are
> >not liable for anything. Anything breaks and you get to keep both
> >pieces. Doesn't Debian say that too?
>
> Yes, they do. However, whenever I break something from the Debian repos, I
> always find a way to glue the pieces back together. I'm thinking that
> restoring the Brother drivers or whatever they might break in the remainder
> of the system might not be such an easy proposition. Their docs, such as
> they are, would definitely not help in the process. The real reason I
> preferred the scripted installer was that I didn't have to read Brother's
> installation instructions. The installer guided me by the hand every step.
>
> To its credit, the result was a device which worked with all of its bells
> and whistles. Accomplishing that with the piecemeal package and policy
> installations with their instructions was not so easy. There were many
> mistakes encoded in just a few steps of those instructions. I had to
> actually crank up my brain and reason that I really didn't have to connect a
> usb cable during driver installation if I was preparing to use the device
> solely as a networked multifunction printer.
Working (even in a substandard way) is not a problem. It is when
non-free software stops working that is a problem. Very often, the
finger is pointed at the Linux distribution, which is expected to fix
it somehow. A bug reporter insisting (usually without any evidence of
the nature of the interaction between free and non-free software) that
a change in Debian is the cause of printing or scanning failure is not
unknown. Vendors not keeping their offerings up-to-date wrt Debian is
not the norm, I would say.
Some manufacturers, HP and Epson, for example, integrate their scanner
software and co-operate with SANE developers; Brother don't seem to,
although they do have drivers for some scanners which claim to be under
the GPL. No source code though.
> >Furthermore, the license informs anyone who wants the source code for
> >the drivers to bugger off and not make stupid requests. Debian doesn't
> >do that.
>
> The only reason I can imagine why they wouldn't want to make the source
> available is that they don't want everyone reading it, pointing at them, and
> laughing. But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it's written better than the
> instructions. Scratch that. It has to be better written, or it wouldn't work
> at all.
Anything can only be a guess. I suppose the software is written to do
what Brother wants it to do, so they are happy with it. SANE developers
have talked about a probable rewrite of any released source being needed
to fit in with sane, if only to accomodate non-Linux code. The same
would be the case for printing.
--
Brian.
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