>> I can only assume Dave Airlie is also upset that he can’t step the disk head by himself on his hard disk.
>Hmmm... aren't the kernel devs frequently clamoring for direct access to flash devices instead of working around firmware and FTL bugs?
Yes they do(*), but this doesn't prevent them to include drivers in the kernel for these devices..
*: disks which lie about the state of the data are hugely annoying as well.