[PATCH] 8250_pci: Prevent Exar/RTD Boards from binding.

[greg@kroah.com (Greg KH)]

On Fri, Sep 25, 2015 at 05:37:03PM +0000, Rob Groner wrote:
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu [mailto:Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]
> > Sent: Friday, September 25, 2015 12:48 PM
> > To: Rob Groner <rgroner@RTD.com>
> > Cc: kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org
> > Subject: Re: [PATCH] 8250_pci: Prevent Exar/RTD Boards from binding.
> > 
> > On Fri, 25 Sep 2015 11:46:29 -0400, Rob Groner said:
> > > Serial boards made by RTD using the Exar XR17V358 chip rely on the
> > > extra capabilities of the Exar-provided driver to allow configuration
> > > of the board.  When support for the Exar chip was added to the kernel
> > > 8250_pci driver, this then prevented easy use of the board by
> > > customers for anything other than standard serial usage in RS232 mode.
> > 
> > Was it your intent to also prevent the use of this board in standard serial
> > usage in RS232 mode (which I'd expect is the most common use case)?
> 
> That is a byproduct of giving the non-average user the ability to
> reconfigure their board.  This will basically move us back to pre-3.8,
> where the customer would simply have to insmod the provided Exar
> driver.  The small inconvenience to that more common user seems (to us
> in Tech Support) outweighed by the much greater inconvenience to the
> user who wants to reconfigure.

Where is the exar driver, in the kernel already?

confused,

greg k-h