Standardizing digital, analog control points in the kernel?

[Brian McGovern (bmcgover)]

All,
  This is a question that I'm sure could span multiple lists and multiple perspectives; for example, there is probably significant input to be had from -arm. However, I'm going to ask here to try to get the biggest collection of feedback.

  I've been working with a number of I/O capable devices for awhile - Pis, Beaglebones, for example, but also a lot of the USB Velleman boards, X-10, Insteon, etc.

  I've been contemplating a project to consolidate the various control points, with a certain amount of metadata, at the userland level and provide a standardized interface - most likely through a network socket via XML, some form of HTTP, a combination, or something else entirely. The reason would be to sufficiently abstract the various layers so that domain experts could focus on specific areas - for example, device driver writers could focus on adding more devices which provide control points without needing to provide server or applications bits, UI writers and control applications can worry about looking pretty and communicating through a language-independent interface, and so forth.

  The question I have is whether a.) Anyone is looking at doing something similar, and b.) if anyone is looking at doing something similar inside the kernel as a device driver, filesystem, or other variation (e.g. I'm thinking of something like ucom, where the low-level hardware drivers plug in to it to provide a generic user interface on top)?

     -B