[Libosinfo] [v2 1/8] API to query format of device driver

[Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Christophe Fergeau <cfergeau at redhat.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 05:38:27AM +0200, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak) wrote:
>> Actually you and I both missed something important here: The libosinfo
>> db doesn't just come from libosinfo. We allow downstream and apps to
>> add to the DB. They can as well add new device drivers.
>
> Currently install scripts only support one format, so there is not much
> point for downstream to add a driver in an unsupported format.

1. With my patches, winxp will support one format for preinstall
drivers and another for postinstall.
2. How do apps find out which format is supported if they want to add
more drivers? Currently, only by looking at the scripts themselves
(which is more like asking them to read the source). It would
definitely be desirable to have a simple API like this to query such
info.

> I don't even
> know if you can append easily information to an existing OS (as opposed to
> overwriting an existing OS) to add a driver while keeping the existing
> instal script.

Its pretty easy but even if its not, that is pretty irreverent. The
relevant fact is that we support it. If its not easy, we can talk
about it in another thread.

> Adding another driver format requires patching libosinfo (schema/parsing
> changes), so we'll know about it if that's needed, and then we can think
> talk again about this API in light of this new format.

That is also not true. Any part of the DB can be extended, including
addition of scripts and OSs.


-- 
Regards,

Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)
FSF member#5124