Dear Maintainer, It would be nice to be able to specify that a given
hardware is of a specific
type and then specify for all of that type of hardware, a list of packages
could be useful. This would reduce redundancy in the modaliases file
and also make it easier to add new hardware and packages.

An example: I want to add a smart card reader:

0a5c:5800 Broadcom Corp. BCM5880 Secure Applications Processor

and register that as a smart card reader.

Then I want to register that smart card readers could benefit from this
list of packages:

pcsc-tools libpcsclite-dev pcscd libcci

to support Norwegian Buypass smart cards (see instructions in Norwegian
here:
https://www.buypass.no/kundeservice/nedlastingssenter/_attachment/28021?_ts=14618ff9ad8
)

Currently the hardware information must be added to all of these packages.

Ideally maybe even another indirection layer could be added, to group
these packages into "Smart card reader with Buypass card".

[Marius Kotsbak]

For USB, this can already be done at least for the types of hardware
with its own USB device class.  See the modalias-format.txt file in the
source package for details.

Does this have its own device class?

My plan for isenkram is to use the DEP-11/AppStream information for
Debian when it become available, and unless it got a "hardware class"
system, I suspect we will have to live with the USB device class system.