Has there ever been any discussion about classifying devices according
to their function, and providing an interface (say with libsysfs) for
user apps to enumerate a particular class? The new udev project _does_
provide the nice feature of persistent naming of a given device that can
change positions on a bus (like 2 USB printers that change USB ports),
but what about hunting for devices that provide the same function that
can exist on any bus (like 1 parallel port printer and 1 USB printer)?
_After_ devices are configured and assigned names, users can depend on
udev and friends to provide the same name to their devices. But _before_
the devices are initially configured, users (rather, writers of user
apps) have to pull some special hacks to scan buses or dig deep into
/proc to find what devices provide some target function (like printing).
I see /sys/class, but that seems more defined as "hardware architecture"
class rather than "function" class.
Any opinions?
Tyler
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