Standardised Hardware Support Spec - Please Review

[Alex Jones]

On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 19:58 +0100, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 12:57:06PM +0100, Alex Jones wrote:
> > This comes about as more and more people question why their computer
> > starts bluetooth services when they don't have a bluetooth device, or
> > why I have a HP printer driver control panel applet, or a Palm Pilot
> > sync applet, or PCMCIA services, etc. etc. etc...
> 
> This was a conscious decision.  Our belief is that users should not need to
> find or install additional software to make use of common devices.  They
> should "just work" out of the box.  If your intent is to suggest a way to
> address the problem of superfluous menu items, a better way to do that would
> be to investigate hiding the menu items unless the relevant hardware is
> detected (via HAL).

I'm /not/ suggesting we don't install a core set of hardware support
software by default. I am suggesting that users be given a choice by
packaging drivers, etc., according to this spec.

With this system in place, I could look at my hardware support package
manager and see "Generic Bluetooth module", "HP Printers", etc., and
just untick them to uninstall the cruft that I don't have any use for.

(As a side thought, I'm not sure what constitutes "common" hardware, but
I for one don't know a single person who owns a Palm device.)