Re: [sane-devel] OpenDeviceDB lists the scanners SANE supports, with links to the backend man pages

[Johannes Meixner <jsmeix@suse.de>]

Hello,

On 2026-10-26 17:59, Till Kamppeter wrote:
...
> I got asked the same but for OpenPrinting
> and printer drivers.
> 
> I think, any device about which we know whether,
> how, and how well it works with Linux and
> open source in general should be listed by
> https://opendevicedb.org/.
> 
> Windows users who want to switch to Linux ...

Currently
https://opendevicedb.org/
reads:
---------------------------------------------------
Before you reverse engineer a device,
check if someone already did.

An open directory of devices whose protocols
or firmware have been reverse engineered,
so nobody — human or AI agent — redoes work
that already exists.
---------------------------------------------------
and
https://opendevicedb.org/about/
provides a bit more info about the WHY.

As far as I understand that, the intent of
https://opendevicedb.org/
is not a complete list of devices which are supported
by whatever operating system for arbitrary end-users
but instead
for device driver software developers a list of
devices which do not support a published standard
so reverse engineering of protocol or firmware
is needed to make device driver software.


Kind regards
Johannes Meixner
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