Hardware Database (WAS Re: RH recommends using Windows? plus a Question!)

[Maxwell Kanat-Alexander]

On Wed, 2003-11-05 at 01:06, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> I'm deeply sceptical about any gui implementation from scratch - a
> form-based tool at first to test what exact information is needed seems
> more logical (but I'm not the one writing the code:)

	What sort of tool were you thinking of?

> The db could be hosted at a vendor-neutral location like osdl

	I was thinking that it would be nice to have an all-Linux Hardware
Compatibility Database. The engineering problems would be immense, of
course, starting with the simple logical problems of how to do it at
all.

	It might be better to design a single system that would be easily
portable by other vendors.

> , and a
> system "card" accessible via a simple url so it can be referenced in the
> various bugzillas out there.

	That's a good idea.

>  (you aren't talking about replacing
> bugzilla are you ?)

	Absolutely not. :-)

> There may also probably be ways to have per-component views to allow
> linking to external info (vendor description pages, bios downloads,
> linuxprinting db entry, linux driver homepage,  newsgroup, etc)

	That is certainly a necessity, I'd think. I wonder how we'd get that
information -- automate it somehow, or get it from users, or have
volunteers populate it, or...?

> Anyway this is a wonderful idea, and it should be shared will all the
> other linux project that need hardware dbs.

	I think it would be a great step forward for Linux in general, and
certainly a great asset to Fedora. :-)

	-M