connecting driver developers and hardware owners

In my blog post:
http://linux.overshoot.tv/blogs/augustin/shopping_and_linux_hardware_sup...
I wrote:

While looking for my elusive, ideal scanner, I browsed the SANE mailing list and noticed a few threads where driver developers were asking specific device owners to help by testing and providing feedback 1.

In the most ideal situation, hardware manufacturers would provide the full specs for each of their devices. The Linux community has many, many talented driver developers. However, those developers obviously do not own the full range of hardware available on the market, nor do they have the money to purchase all the newest, most popular hardware entering the market. For them to be able to do their job, they need to have access, directly or remotely to the devices that need to be tested.

In the example above of SANE developers asking scanner owners to volunteer, the developers are obviously pooling their (hardware) resources via the SANE development mailing list. The obvious limitation is that even the whole membership of the said mailing list may not own the full range of devices to test.

So, the question now is: how do we help open source driver developers get in touch with Linux users who own a device to be tested?

I do not have a ready answer to this question, but it is an important one if we want to improve the range of Linux open source drivers in the future.

So: what do you think?
Let's brainstorm some ideas and organize the best of them into the wiki.

• 1. See for example those two recent threads: any sniff volunteers unsupported Canon scanners and To owners of CanoScan 5600F: please volunteer for testing.