Re: [PATCH 4/4] [RFC] UIO: generic platform driver

[Ben Nizette <bn@niasdigital.com>]

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 23:17 +0200, Hans J. Koch wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:08:19PM +0200, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:37:03PM +0200, Uwe Kleine-König wrote:
> > > Signed-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König <Uwe.Kleine-Koenig@digi.com>
> > > ---
> > >  drivers/uio/Kconfig    |    7 ++
> > >  drivers/uio/Makefile   |    1 +
> > >  drivers/uio/uio_pdrv.c |  165 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > >  3 files changed, 173 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> > >  create mode 100644 drivers/uio/uio_pdrv.c
> > 
> > I'm a bit slow today, I don't really understand what this is good for.
> > It's to complicated to serve as a template, and it doesn't support
> > interrupts, so it's not good for any real device, too. So the only
> > usecase would be an irq-less platform_device that just needs its memory
> > mapped. Is this what you intended? What do _you_ use it for?

I've seen this kind of thing hacked up by a few people already, mainly
as a replacement for /dev/mem.  Many people are being scared off
using /dev/mem (and rightly so) because
- They've seen discussions regarding future plans whereby /dev/mem
wouldn't be allowed access to physical memory
- They don't have anything like X forcing them to have /dev/mem and
therefore want to disable it completely for (perceived?) security
reasons.

I like it, it'll sure be used.

	--Ben.