Package: sane-utils Version: 1.1.1-2 Severity: serious
(The original title and description of this bug were inaccurate; please disregard those. The existing pull request has been updated.)
When the libsane1 package is installed, a "scanner" group is created on the system, which has access to the device nodes for local scanners.
If the sane-utils package is also installed, it creates a "saned" user and group for running the network daemon. By default, the "saned" user is added to the "scanner" group, so that the daemon has access to local scanners (but this behavior is controlled using debconf).
If the sane-utils package is purged, it not only deletes the "saned" user and group, but it also unconditionally deletes the "scanner" group, which it did not create and which libsane1 still uses for device node permissions. (Assuming sane-utils was purged alone, attempting to reinstall it will also fail during the configure phase, since the "saned" user cannot be added to the missing "scanner" group.)
