Sometimes this evil behavior it has unintended benefits. My boss gave me a free high-end AGFA scanner because AGFA didn't feel like writing drivers for XP (it was installed on a box with Windows 2000, but he wanted to re-install the OS to XP). Imagine my delight when I find out that Linux supports it, and supports it well.
On a related note, learning about the Linux SANE project is a good exercise in coming up with creative swear words regarding vendors. (I borrowed my parents' scanner last year.) Writing a driver is not difficult, but many companies don't want to invest the time. What's really evil is they can't even be bothered releasing the specs so others can write them for them. Developers are left querying the hardware, making guesstimates, and risk ruining their scanner.
Not only to they don't want to solve them problems themselves (which would be easy for them since they already have the specs), they are determined to make it extremely difficult for others.
If someone has a system where they really want or need their scanner, scanner vendors just cut out Linux as an OS option in many cases.
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Sometimes this evil behavior it has unintended benefits. My boss gave me a free high-end AGFA scanner because AGFA didn't feel like writing drivers for XP (it was installed on a box with Windows 2000, but he wanted to re-install the OS to XP). Imagine my delight when I find out that Linux supports it, and supports it well. On a related note, learning about the Linux SANE project is a good exercise in coming up with creative swear words regarding vendors. (I borrowed my parents' scanner last year.) Writing a driver is not difficult, but many companies don't want to invest the time. What's really evil is they can't even be bothered releasing the specs so others can write them for them. Developers are left querying the hardware, making guesstimates, and risk ruining their scanner. Not only to they don't want to solve them problems themselves (which would be easy for them since they already have the specs), they are determined to make it extremely difficult for others. If someone has a system where they really want or need their scanner, scanner vendors just cut out Linux as an OS option in many cases.
... for astronauts?
Those of you who are complaining about lack of functionality need to look into Krita or ImageMagick.