Driver for Microsoft USB Fingerprint Reader

["Daniel Bonekeeper" <thehazard@gmail.com>]

Hello everybody.

I would like to develop a driver for any kind of fingerprint reader
that currently doesn't have a driver for linux, and I'm open for
suggestions on which device I should use. My first thought was the
microsoft usb fingerprint reader
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DG2-00002-DT&cpc=SCH) because
it's a new device (and, of course, doesn't have any driver for linux),
it's cheap, and it's from MS (read "would be fun" =)

Before proceeding, I would like to know if:
1) Would it be ilegal to write a driver for such device (i.e., without
the permition of the hardware manufacturer) ?

2) Is there any standard on how the fingerprint should be presented to
userspace ? Currently the only fingerprint driver that I could find is
the Siemens ID Mouse driver (drivers/usb/misc/idmouse.c), and it
delivers the fingerprint as an image in pnm format thru a device like
/dev/idmouse0 (cat /dev/idmouse 0 > /tmp/fingerprint.pnm). Is this the
best way to deliver the image to userspace, or should we have an
centralized for that, or a centralized device like /dev/fingerprint0
(which then wraps to the idmouse driver or any other)

There are also other interesting devices like this
(http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=FIN002&cpc=SCH) that are
cheap and probably would be a better subject. I know that there are
some standards (something related to the resolution of the readers),
and some of the cheap ones don't meet some "high-profile security"
standards (I think from NSA or something like that). Maybe we should
also try any of those heavy-duty high-security gadgets too.

Another question: Is there any place (probably a webpage) where we can
see a list of hardware devices separated by category, and know if
there's already a driver for it (and the name/url of the maintainer)
or not, if there are plans to develop a driver for it or not, or to
form teams to develop it ? Like a webpage where I can browse and see
that the device X doesn't have any drivers for it (and people can go
and "vote" for a driver, so we can know which devices are most wanted
by users), and sign ourselves to develop it ? I think that it would be
cool. If there isn't anything like that, I can develop it myself and
somebody at kernel.org or another place could host it =]

Thanks,
Daniel

-- 
What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.