Re: experimental patch for toshiba_acpi

[Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org>]

I acknowledge that the SMM control method doesn't fit well
into our current generic software abstractions for
controlling hardware.

I also acknowledge that this control has a right to exist
if people find it useful.  Further, I don't by the fact
that it root can use it to brick a system as sufficient
reason not to provide it.  Root can already do worse...

However, I'm not excited about extending toshiba_acpi to
include /dev/toshiba SMM interface that is already
provided by the toshiba driver.

I'd rather see the 'toshiba' driver (perhaps renamed to be toshiba_smm)
extended so that it is the only driver to provide this interface.

BTW. I notice that both toshiba_acpi and toshiba ship in Fedora
and can load on my satellite pro.  However, fedora doesn't ship
toshset -- is toshiba and /dev/toshiba useful without it?

Are new machines still using this interface, or it is going away over 
time?

thanks,
-Len