SANE stands for "Scanner Access Now Easy" and is an application programming interface (API) that provides standardized access to any raster image scanner hardware (flatbed scanner, hand-held scanner, video- and still-cameras, frame-grabbers, etc.).
The SANE API is public domain and its discussion and development is open to everybody.
The current source code is written for UNIX (including GNU/Linux) and is available under the GNU General Public License (the SANE API is available to proprietary applications and backends as well, however).
SANE is a universal scanner interface.
The value of such a universal interface is that it allows writing just one driver per image acquisition device rather than one driver for each device and application.
So, if you have three applications and four devices, traditionally you'd have had to write 12 different programs.
With SANE, this number is reduced to seven: the three applications plus the four drivers.
Of course, the savings get even bigger as more and more drivers and/or applications are added.
