[Lvfs-announce] X-Device and categories

Hi all,

Yesterday I merged a change[1] to the LVFS disallowing X-Device for
some update protocols. Some vendors have been uploading things like
fingerprint reader updates with the X-Device tag, which means that the
icon and translation for the user is wrong. Some updates _do_ make
sense to use X-Device, and I've been quite liberal allowing protocols
like com.google.fastboot and org.uefi.capsule to continue to use
X-Device as before. Some protocols should always use a specific
category (e.g. com.ti.tps6598x should always be X-UsbDock,
org.flashrom should always be X-System) and I've fixed up the existing
firmware automatically in that case. The LVFS automatically specifies
the fallback, so clients without translation support for X-Keyboard
(for example) will fall back to X-Device automatically. Existing
firmware does not need to be fixed, but new uploads will need the
correct category to be set.

If you are uploading UEFI updates, please also be mindful to choose
the correct category -- e.g. X-System, X-EmbeddedController,
X-ManagementEngine -- or one of the more precise categories like
X-CorporateManagementEngine -- this allows us to make the client user
experience much nicer, showing the correct translations and artwork to
make the process less scary.

If you think it would be correct to use X-Device and the LVFS "now
isn't letting you" please let me know and I can just click a checkbox
to allow that. If you're uploading firmware and you just can't be
bothered to change the category and the LVFS isn't letting you move
the firmware to stable -- then now you have a good reason to choose
that category :)

I know I've emailed you all a few times this year asking you all to do
extra things, and to be mindful of this-and-that -- but working
together we shipped over 30 MILLION FIRMWARE UPDATES this year, which
is a huge increase from the year before. We now are working with over
130 vendor groups[2], of all shapes and sizes, building the plumbing
to keep the hardware ecosystem secure. Next year we should pass the
100 million updates supplied since we started the LVFS project all
those years ago, and I'm really looking forward to celebrating that.

I hope everyone has a great holiday; I'm going to be back to work in
early January -- although I'll be checking email and fixing anything
important every now and then. Thanks again everyone.

Richard.

[1] https://gitlab.com/fwupd/lvfs-website/-/commit/1d8af9e2fe35845031cbded309a9f21067027e63
[2] https://fwupd.org/lvfs/metrics