quoted

One thought on this approach though - if one has a PHY that supports
"activity" but not independent "rx" and "tx" activity indications
and it doesn't support software control, how would one enable activity
mode? There isn't a way to simultaneously enable both at the same
time... However, I need to check whether there are any PHYs that fall
into this category.

Problem is that for such feature and to have at least something working
we need to face compromise. We really can't support each switch feature
and have a generic API for everything.

I agree we need to make compromises. We cannot support every LED
feature of every PHY, they are simply too diverse. Hopefully we can
support some features of every PHY. In the worst case, a PHY simply
cannot be controlled via this method, which is the current state
today. So it is not worse off.

       Andrew