Re: [Libusb-devel] "* DRIVERLESS DEVICE *" message

[Pete B. <pb...@gm...>]

On 2010.08.18 15:11, Peter Stuge wrote:
> Wow, really surprising terminology, but maybe you'll agree that it is
> an exception to the normal working case, if the intention is to
> access the device. We should try to avoid that something which is an
> exception might be interpreted as something positive.

This is Windows. Trying to access an USB device that doesn't have a 
driver on Windows is about as ridiculous as trying to access an IEEE 
1394 device with libusb (unless you use a custom Windows kernel, you'll 
get enumeration, and that's all). Heck, if my enumeration for some 
reason listed both USB and Firewire (could happen - Microsoft could 
decide to use a single class GUID for USB + 1394, which we would then 
use to list devices), and I were to output something like "* FIREWIRE 
DEVICE *" everytime I had to ignore a 1394 during enum (because it's 
debug, and I'm free to output whatever I want in debug), you wouldn't 
come complain that people are going to expect to access their FireWire 
devices because there's a *DEBUG* message about them during enum.

Well, it's exactly the same with driverless.

But of course, now I understand where you're coming from. Linux (and 
possibly Darwin) users are expected to access "driverless" devices, 
because, well, the kernel has an USB generic *driver* that allows you do 
so, and then there exists higher level drivers that provide more 
specific functionality.

But if the intention is to access the device, you need a driver, period. 
Now, if you break down the Linux drivers into lower level and higher 
level, then you might consider that only the higher level qualifies as a 
driver, while the lower level is pretty much given, or, as you put it 
"driving a device without writing a device driver" (except, someone did 
write a generic driver for the kernel), but trying to restrict the 
driverless terminology to higher level drivers is probably equally 
confusing to people who will read "driverless" on Linux as "not having 
any driver at all", i.e. not even being able to do low level USB access.

> "Driverless" is a state, without information about expectations, and
> it already has a de-facto meaning of "driving a device without
> writing a device driver".

This is your (Linux) de-facto. The Windows de-facto would be "device 
that cannot be accessed at all".

I don't mind clarifying the *debug* message (But weren't we supposed not 
to care about how our users read our *debug* messages by the way? 
Weren't debug messages something that was only meant to be used 
internally by us, for development and not something that was meant to be 
used in a useful manner by our users? Glad to see that you eventually 
rallied to seeing debug messages as something that our users might want 
to work with), but you can't simply barge in and assume that Windows 
people will interpret things in the same manner as Linux people do. My 
de-facto assumption on Windows is that, if anybody sees driverless, 
they'll equate this with no device access ever.

Regards,

/Pete