Re: Sensors and the input layer (was Re: [RFC] [PATCH V2 1/2] input: CMA3000 Accelerometer driver)

[Dmitry Torokhov <dmitry.torokhov@gmail.com>]

Hi Felipe,

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 11:04:39AM -0500, Felipe Balbi wrote:
> Hi Dmitry,
> 
> When we tried to push N900's accelerometer driver as an
> input device you commented you didn't want sensors such
> as accelerometers, magnetometers, proximity, etc on the
> input layer because "they are not user input", although
> I didn't fully agree with you, we had to modify the drivers
> and, I believe, one of them is sitting in staging under
> the industrial i/o subsystem.
> 
> Are you now accepting sensor drivers on the input layer ?
> that will make our life a lot easier but we need some
> definition to avoid having to re-work drivers when we
> want to push them to mainline.
> 

I got persuaded that 3-axis accelerometers are most often indended to be
used as input devices so I decided I should take these in (adxl134x is
there). I still think that sensor devices in general are better suited
to IIO subsystem and I hope it will get out of staging soon.

Once it is out of staging we may think about creating a IIO-to-input
bridge (copuld be either in kernel or a userspace solution based on
uinput) to route sensors that are indeed used as HIDs.

Hope this makes sense.

-- 
Dmitry