From: Matt Mackall <redacted>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:05:02 -0500

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 15:37 -0700, David Miller wrote:

quoted

From: Matt Mackall <redacted>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:24:26 -0500

quoted

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 14:35 -0700, David Miller wrote:

quoted

This change means you can't configure nearly all of the features on
your ethernet card.  You can't even configure the link parameters
without ethtool support.

Which is big fat don't-care for the vast majority of users. Various
popular distros don't even install the tool by default.

Are you even aware that the ethtool layer gets invoked by simply
enabling IP forwarding or bridgining, in order to disable LRO
offloading which conflicts with such uses?

Oh noes. How ever will my poor webcam get on the internets without that.

Have any firewall rules implemented on that webcam?

It's only a matter of time before other core facilities need
to use ethtool to adjust the device's settings in one way or
another.

So what I said is anything but hyperbole.