Re: [hfdb] Re: Grand Unified Hardware Database

[James K. Lowden]

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:54:49 +0200, Till Kamppeter
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Richard Stallman wrote:
> >     We put simply driver lists into the entries, as shown above. In
> >     the Foomatic database the <driver> entry is the recommended
> >     driver, 
> > 
> > There can't be one "recommended" driver once we support multiple
> > systems.  Something else has to be done.
> > 
> > 
> 
> The recommended driver on linuxprinting.org is the one which makes the 
> printer working best, it usually gives the highest output quality.
...
> ... But a driver recommendation can also 
> depend on other things (best output quality, fastest, most user-settable
> 
> options, ...), so the comment text should contain additional info if 
> there are also other recommended drivers and why they are recommended. 

Another way to look at this is through the DriverFeature/DeviceFeature
coverage ratio.  IOW, the "recommended driver" is really an editorial
statement representing a weighted score of the drivers' capabilities.  It
would be interesting to render a score based on the driver's feature set,
and let the best score win.  I think RMS's point was partly that it's
infeasible if the data aren't readily available.  

--jkl