Re: [gentoo-user] Scanners, sane and driver support question

["J. Roeleveld" <joost@antarean.org>]

On Sunday, November 11, 2018 1:35:29 AM CET Dale wrote:
> Howdy,
> 
> I'm on the hunt for a scanner, flatbed type, and have been browsing Ebay
> and the sane project list of supported devices.  I'm leaning toward HP
> on this.  While looking at say a ScanJet 6200C, it says the drivers are
> no longer maintained but complete.  It leads me to this question.  Does
> that mean they are complete and fixes will no longer be made even if
> something breaks them and they need a little tweaking OR they are
> complete and if a bug pops up, they will be fixed as needed but all
> functions work?  I can see the logic either way on this.  I'm leaning
> toward the side that if something pops up that requires a little
> tweaking, it will be done by someone.  The drivers are just feature
> complete. 
> 
> Does anyone else have the same thinking or is buying one of these
> scanners a bad idea if the drivers were to break and the scanner was
> rendered no longer usable? 

In short:

"No longer maintained" = "If something breaks, you can try to fix it yourself"
"Complete" =(usually)= "All functionality works at time of testing"

In general, if the drivers are Open Source, someone somewhere might still be 
maintaining this if anything does break. If there is a binary blob required to 
make it work, it depends on how this part actually works.
If it can be treated like an appliance (eg. with input X will always do Y and 
output Z), then you can ignore the fact it is a black box.

--
Joost