This morning I committed a rather largish (23 files changed, 28 insertions, 1551 deletions) patch:
commit f884a1ae954d14928a6a7055d4d4b182fbb2a3bc Author: Richard Hughes <richard_at_hughsie.com> Date: Fri Jul 3 13:49:05 2009 +0100 HAL is no longer a dependency of gnome-power-manager
This means that gnome power manager in git master no longer needs HAL to compile or run. This is a quite a significant moment, as now it relies just on the thriving DeviceKit* stack, rather than the old lumbering HAL.
Just a word of warning: You’ll need DeviceKit-power 009 (released in a few days time) if you want to use g-p-m in git master without loosing your ability to change your backlight, or to set the lid action preferences. It’ll still compile with 008, but 009 is very much recommended.