Comment 18 for bug 208405

> there is a (broken) debian folder to build a deb in the source code download from the japanese epson site.

If there is a problem with the included debian folder, report a bug[1], preferably with a clean patch. That Ubuntu's build farm does not know anything about an 'unstable' distribution is Ubuntu's problem as far as I'm concerned.

 [1] https://www.avasys.jp/secure/english/linux_e/support_form.html

> all I want is the scanner support, so I can use flegita or xsane. is this now GPL?

I don't know about flegita or xsane, but iscan is not GPL.
As a whole, iscan is GPL with exceptions and includes (and depends on) a decidedly non-free library. The 'epkowa' backend does not depend on any non-free components but it does include run-time support for their use.