We've had this discussion, what, over a dozen times already?  It keeps
coming up every few months.

There are two primary reasons to keep this in userspace:

1) Someone might actually want to access the storage mode of these devices.
It has come up in the past, and there is no good reason the kernel should
deny access to that function of the device by enforcing a switchover.

2) It is much much easier to update a userspace tool than the kernel.
Thus, new devices can be supported without a kernel update by end-users.

Matt

-- 
Matthew Dharm                              Home: mdharm-usb@one-eyed-alien.net 
Maintainer, Linux USB Mass Storage Driver

Now payink attention, please.  This is mouse.  Click-click. Easy to 
use, da? Now you try...
					-- Pitr to Miranda
User Friendly, 10/11/1998
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This behaviour depends on the respective device. Most devices 
don't re-expose the installation medium after switching, some do.

Anyway, usb_modeswitch is on the road to becoming a standard 
part of the big distributions, so users won't have to look for 
it actively.

Josua Dietze
--

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I still believe that, for an end-user, upgrading a userspace tool is much
much easier than upgrading a kernel.

Also, the actual "driver" for the device (i.e. the modem part) doesn't need
an upgrade to the kernel component for these types of devices.

Finally, these sorts of databases don't belong in the kernel as much as
possible.

The usb-storage driver will not accept patches for device which can be
supported via userspace-only tools.

Matt

-- 
Matthew Dharm                              Home: mdharm-usb@one-eyed-alien.net 
Maintainer, Linux USB Mass Storage Driver

NYET! The evil stops here!
					-- Pitr
User Friendly, 6/22/1998
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And just to confirm, I support Matthew's position.

thanks,

greg k-h
--

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