I would personally add ifrename to this list.
I would suggest udev instead.
This means you're suggesting a whole new aspect of functionality to be introduced to udev, because udev is currently, AFAIK, only for creating device nodes under /dev/.
and a proper interface for user interfaces.
What do you mean under this?
Like a HAL interface, or a socket, so we can have GNOME/KDE applications easily configure networks on laptops.
Why is a socket better than proper UNIX-way command-line interface? (Proper UNIX-way includes producing machine-friendly output.)
Is there a reason to cling to ifupdown?
I guess that there is: there is a substantial amount of code written and tested, and ifupdown is widely accepted.
ifupdown does many things right. But it also needs a brushup. I just prefer to start with a clean slate. You are free to do otherwise, or team up with me. Ah, Free software. :)
As for me, I would personally prefer starting a new project like netconf in C or some other imperative language rather than contributing to ifupdown -- I'm not very good with the concept of literal programming. I believe that a good, solid programming style allows to express an algorithm better than paragraphs of prose. (That's just my personal opinion.)
-- Alexey Feldgendler <alexey@feldgendler.ru> [ICQ: 115226275] http://feldgendler.livejournal.com