[sane-devel] sane-backends effectively GPL'd in disguise?

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Dear all,

I have been upgrading "Image Scan! for Linux" to use SANE internals from 
sane-backends-1.0.12.  Ever since the FSF slapped us on the wrist for an 
unintentional violation of the GPL, we have a little allergic to license 
issues so I combed through the include/, lib/ and sanei/ directories for 
license problems.

The following files in include/ and sanei/ are GPL'd *without* the SANE 
exception:

  include/lalloca.h
  include/lassert.h
  include/sane/sanei.h
  include/sane/sanei_codec_ascii.h
  include/sane/sanei_codec_bin.h
  include/sane/sanei_scsi.h
  include/sane/sanei_thread.h
  include/sane/sanei_usb.h
  include/sane/sanei_wire.h
  include/sane/saneopts.h
  sanei/linux_sg3_err.h

Even though I have read the GPL twenty+ times over, I am still not sure 
whether this means that files including any of these would effectively 
void their SANE exception (assuming they have one).  After all the SANE 
exception explicitly states:

  This exception does not, however, invalidate any other reasons why
  the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public
  License.

Ergo, files like sanei/sanei_scsi.c and sanei/sanei_usb.c, which include 
their counterpart header files, might in effect be released under the 
GPL and the GPL only without any SANE exception.  The same logic applies 
to backends including files from the above list.

The TODO notes that the getopt*.c and md5.c files have been checked for 
(and replaced by LGPL'd versions) precisely the reasons cited above.

Could anyone shed any light on this?
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen                            EPSON KOWA Corporation, ECS
GnuPG key: 6BE37D90/AB6B 0D1F 99E7 1BF5 EB97  976A 16C7 F27D 6BE3 7D90
Penguin's lib!       -- I hack, therefore I am --               LPIC-2